


Kindred spirits

by BeneaththeBrim



Category: Mushishi
Genre: Adashino is an adorable spaz, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Character Study, Death, Domestic Fluff, Edo Period, Fluff and Smut, Gay Sex, Horror, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Magical Realism, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Period Typical Attitudes, Pre-Canon, Purple Prose, Slow Burn, bisexual Ginko, lowkey hair fetish, meandering intellectual discussions, sometimes Ginko is OOC but only around Adashino
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-04-29 19:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14479233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneaththeBrim/pseuds/BeneaththeBrim
Summary: Ginko meets Adashino-sensei for the first time, and their relationship develops.





	1. Moonlit musk

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo after glutting myself on YOI fanfic for a few months, I finally decided it would be okay to watch ~other anime~. Enter Mushishi (I swear it's not just because of the resemblance between Ginko and a certain silver-haired Russian I swear). I noticed that Adashinko (is that even the right slash name idk) just wasn't getting the kind of fanfic love I needed in my life, so I decided to write some of my own. Deepest apologies if there's some Viktuuri mixed in with my Adashinko, but I try to keep them in character for the most part.
> 
> I've done at least cursory research on the time period to fill in some characterization/add realism to the setting, but Mushishi itself has weird anachronisms everywhere so if I get a historical detail wrong idk let's say it's canon as per the Mushishi-universe Edo period. But I do appreciate feedback wrt my misconceptions about the Edo Period/Japanese culture.
> 
> Oh, also, speaking of canon-compliance, I have only watched the anime, but haven't read the manga or watched the live action film, so if I say something that contradicts those sources, well, sucks to suck. By which I mean, I suck, and it sucks. For me.
> 
> For reasons, I'm assuming that Bell Droplets happens before the events in this fic, but everything else happens after (except the flashbacks duh). Ginko is 19 and Adashino is 22 in the first chapter.
> 
> I have BIG PLANS for this fic. Who knows if I'll ever write them all down haha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits: I'm trying to replace Western units of measurement with either 'qualitative' measurements (i.e. saying "an arm's length" instead of "a meter") or historically accurate ones: in particular, people in Edo period Japan divided days into 12 unequal hours, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clock, and used the Chinese lunisolar calendar. So although "day" and "month" mean roughly the same thing, "hour" can mean 1-3 times a usual hour, and "week" means a 9-10 day period. Hope this doesn't confuse anyone!

Doctor Adashino meets Ginko some hours earlier, and under less fortunate circumstances than planned.

It is a damp, misty night in the seaside village, gusty, as though the earth’s bones themselves are shaking the chill from them. Just a few days until the vernal equinox, just moments before dawn.

The doctor fancies himself the center of culture and erudition in--well, at least the surrounding few villages of the coast--perhaps even the valley beyond. A collector, he dabbles in sciences, languages, arts. And sometimes, when his practice is slow, he allows himself to indulge more deeply in these scattered interests.

So it is that at this irresponsibly late hour, he sits on his porch, humming a song of heartbreak and moonlight he can’t quite place and plucking at a shamisen, basking in a warmth that seems to emanate from the chords.

 _I must be getting better at this,_ he muses, pausing mid-tune.

 _But perhaps I should sleep a bit before meeting the new mushishi tomorrow-or is it today?_ Adashino lowers the bachi from the instrument and gapes at the sky, where inky black has ceded the night’s expanse to a deep navy.

“Was I really playing all night? Well, I better get some rest, gotta be sharp today, don’t wanna be swindled-” he yawns, and shivers, “not like the time with the rabbit with ‘golden’ dung, not again!”

Before he can shuffle inside, a voice erupts in the distance.

“Sensei! Sensei! The new mushishi has fallen ill! Please come look at him!"

 _Hmm, I suppose I won’t have to worry about bargaining today...Agh but now I won’t get any sleep!_ Face meets palm.

He moves to gather some diagnostic tools and a variety of palliative medicine and heads off, leaving the shamisen, along with the moonlit reverie of night, unattended on the porch.

The villager hurries him to the edge of town where the mushishi set up shop the night before. As he leads Adashino, the anxious villager wonders about the sick man’s--and the town’s--predicament:

“What if the spirits are angry with us for calling a mushishi...after those bad omens with the fish...who knows what it could mean?”

The doctor doesn’t know what it could mean. He is attracted to mystery, but the fish he had dissected were unpleasantly strange, the creatures inside even moreso. Perhaps the mushi did not want to be disturbed by this newcomer.

Or perhaps a man walking at length in the damp, cold, and wind had caught a fever, nothing more to it.

They approach the minka housing the sick traveler. Upon entering, the doctor glances across the room to the futon holding the mushishi. “An old man, to be traveling in such weather,” he murmurs, seeing the mushishi’s white hair as he rummages through his bag.

“No, come see,” says the villager’s wife.

Adashino approaches the futon and inhales sharply.

“Oh. How strange.”

The man is young, handsome even, despite the feverish sheen of sweat and shivering that wracks his body. Adashino had never seen someone with his coloring--otherworldly pale, with hair the white of a snow-filled valley merging with the skyline on a cloudy day. His eye flickers open, revealing an eerily green iris.

His mouth opens and gruff words struggle with a hacking cough. “Not mushi… just… normal… -Blughh Ack Kaghh- … illness.”

As his words lose out to the coughing fit, the village woman explains: “He insists that the spirits aren’t angry at his presence, but it still worries me.”

Adashino grunts and waits until the man’s cough-stricken body calms before beginning a routine symptom check. He has the village woman make some tea with medicinal herbs for the sick man--and some energizing herbs for himself--and speaks with her husband about the sequence of events the night before. Sighing, he makes his conclusion.

“It’s a simple fever. He should be fine in a matter of days. Still, given the circumstances...I’d like him to stay with me for observation.” _And this way I can still get some shut-eye at this hour._

The wife nods as she helps the mushishi sip at the herbal tea.

\--------

_~6 hours earlier~_

Ginko groans behind his mushi cigarette as he makes the last steps out of the swampy wood, onto the path down to the village. He spends his days walking, so he rarely feels as though he cannot take another step, but a weakness has seeped in, rent through his legs and lungs, and split across his forehead. Taking a breather and glancing at his surroundings, he is surprised to find no mushi straggling about. _I wonder where they’ve gone...Out of this muck, to be sure._ He urges himself on through the chilly mist, sighing in relief as he reaches a gabled roof at dusk.

A village couple open their home to him, feeding him hot miso and tea, introducing themselves and talking about the village, its history, its inhabitants.

He asks about the doctor he is to meet the next day, an interested party in some of the unusual wares he collects on his travels. The wife giggles as she replies, “He is a strange man, obsessed with strange things. I’m sure he’ll be fascinated by you.”

Ginko raises his eyebrow. _A strange man. That could mean quite a few things._

After supper they show Ginko a fish, one of this morning’s catch that was deemed unfit to sell. In its belly, where it would normally contain eggs, is a bulge, which, cut open, holds a bloody, slimy lump of bones and fur. He watches as they rinse the small mass, and as the blood drips away, his eye widens to see the unobscured form--

“A hare?”

“Yes,” the husband answers. “About a third of our catch was like this, even the male fish! It’s been happening for over a month, but it’s gotten worse over the last few days. At this rate, we’ll have to start eating them like this, or starve.”

Ginko pulls a handheld microscope from his pocket and examines the fish and fetal rabbit.

“Hmm. I see no mushi on this fish, so I think it should be safe to eat if worse comes to worst. But it will impact your future catches if the fish are unable to reproduce. -cough- Hmph. I’ve traveled a long way. Thank you for taking me in. I must rest before starting in earnest.” His last few words come out in a rasp, and the couple nod assent and show him to a futon.

\---------

He tosses and turns in his sleep, and wakes in the middle of the night to pain and nausea, drags himself outside to puke, crawls back to a restless sleep. His movement rouses the villagers, who converse rapidly about the implications of his sickness, fearing supernatural causes. Through retching coughs, Ginko tries to assuage their fear, though his condition manages to stoke it. Having come to no conclusion, the husband goes across town to fetch the doctor.

Ginko jerks in and out of consciousness as the village woman tries to keep a cool cloth wrapped over his forehead. His fitful slumber is woken by a voice.

“Oh. How strange.”

He opens his eye, seeing blearily a young man with mussed hair and a plain black yukata. _The doctor._ Again, he tries to convey the banality of his illness, and with some prodding the doctor corroborates his account. The village woman helps him drink some tea, which eases his throat in some small measure.

The doctor speaks up as Ginko finishes the tea. “Let’s get moving before it starts to rain again.”

He looks Ginko in the eye and asks if he can move on his own. Ginko nods and stands, the motion crashing a wave of vertigo over him, and he stumbles and is caught. Adashino sighs and tells the villager to bring Ginko’s traveling box along with his own toolkit. At the same time the hapless mushishi finds himself scooped up by his knees and armpits.

As Ginko settles into his fate, his gaze draws up to the doctor’s jawline. He senses the sweet musk of moonlit night on the man, and through the pain and nausea, a feverish desire swims into his mind: if only he had the strength to bring his face closer and breath him in, _taste_ him.

The thoughts calm him into a sleepy reverie. He is almost out as they close in on the doctor’s house in the early morning light, but before falling into warm and pleasant dreams, he sees the abandoned string instrument gleaming on the porch, and his eye widens. _So that’s what she meant._

\----------

“Smooke! Smo -oghck Ack AGhck- ke!”

Doctor Adashino awakens in the early afternoon to these cries, and for a moment panics. _Is there a fire?? I don’t smell it…_ He walks into the next room to see what his patient is making all this racket about.

“Hold on, let me make you some tea so you can speak more easily.”

The mushishi relents, and finds that he is able to hold his own cup to his mouth. _That’s a start._ He tries to speak, slowly and calmly: “Mushi… in your house. I... attract them. My box… top left… drawer. -ahem- Incense. To repel.”

“I understand, you can stop speaking.”

Ginko smiles gratefully at him, and Adashino smiles back, holds the gaze for a moment. Snapping out of it, the doctor pulls a stick of incense from its drawer and lights it. He sees Ginko has made use of the bedpan and goes to clean it and attend to his own grooming.

When he returns the man is back asleep. Adashino looks over his sleeping form. The man is slim, but well-built. _Probably from carrying that pack all over the country. I wonder what that eye has seen and those hands have touched._ His eyes linger. _Or what hands have touched him._ He slips into fantasy, looking at the mushishi, imagining the dips and curves of his musculature, the softness of his skin and hardness of his- _stop it._ He gets up, shakes his head briskly.

He prepares a new cool compress and brushes back Ginko’s hair to apply it, seeing now up close the way the man’s left eyelids dip inward over a vacant socket where his eye should be. _He probably wears his hair this way to hide it. I should respect that._ Still, he continues to run his fingers through the man’s snow-white hair. _Huh, it feels like normal hair, no softer or rougher despite its odd color._ Slowly, he allows himself one more caress, beginning at the scalp and sliding down over the shell of ear to the sweat-drenched strands at the neck. _Stop. Stop now._ He places the cool cloth on the man’s forehead and ruffles his fringe back over his left eye socket.

Adashino steps back outside and sighs loudly. “What am I doing?” he grumbles to no one in particular. _He’s a patient…_ He looks to the shamisen and considers for a moment…

“No, you’ll only make it worse, with your soothing promises of springtime and love and moonlight.” He glares at the string instrument and accompanying plectrum for a moment. The shamisen makes no reply to his abuse, and he sighs again, picking it up and bringing it back to the storage shed.

“Another time.”

\------------

Before he can return inside, a murmuring group of villagers intercept him at his porch, their eyes full of fear. One steps forward, holding a basket of misshapen fish. “It’s even worse today. Nearly half our catch was like this. When will the mushishi recover?”

Adashino looks at the fish, then to the ground, and back up.

“He’s asleep right now, so try not to make too much noise if you want him to recover soon. I think it will be at least another day before he’ll be able to talk and eat solid food, let alone walk around. But his condition will improve in time, I’m sure of it.

“As for the catch, I was told the mushishi believes even these pregnant fish should still be safe to eat, so although they may not be so appetizing, perhaps the fishermen should prioritize catching these and throwing back the ones that can still breed normally.”

The villagers leave in uneasy satisfaction at this temporary solution. The doctor leans against a cherry tree, exhaling. _Please get better soon mushishi...I don’t know how long I can hold them off._ He looks up and is surprised to see the beginnings of blossoms. _It can’t be that time of year already, can it?_ He looks down the road, and sees that the next-nearest cherry tree hasn’t started blooming yet.

“Huh.”

He turns around and pats his tree playfully. “Don’t overexert yourself now, missus! Save some blossoms for Hanami now!”

The doctor returns indoors, leaning against the wall and chuckling to himself. His peace is broken by feverish rasping from the futon.

“Moon...light...musk… Smells...like… moonligh- -cough -t!”

The mushishi’s jerking about again. Doctor Adashino rushes over and peers at his patient, who, seeing him, grins lopsidedly and reaches up for him.

The patient’s febrile helplessness provides Adashino with a renewed sense of professional distance, and he pulls away. “Nu-uh, no moving for you, mister! Go back to sleep.”

Ginko repays his rejection with a pout, and for a moment Adashino wonders if the man is genuinely hurt by this rejection. Sighing, he makes a compromise, and leans down to return to his earlier petting motion, but this time with a different, unselfish intent. _Yeah yeah, keep telling yourself that Adashino._

“How about I sing you something,” he relents, “to help you fall back asleep.” _How’s that for a good bedside manner, eh?_

He racks his brain for the tune that ran through his head the night before, but finding only emptiness, falls back on some old lullabies from his childhood. Humming the melodies softly, he continues the repetitive motion of his hand through the man’s shock of white hair until his breathing calms. Gently he pulls away a second time, and goes to replace the incense.

“Moonlight musk?” he grumbles. “The hell is he talking about?

“Unless… What if…?”

\---------------

Ginko feels as though he is rising slowly through deep waters. _Not too far now...not too far from the surface..._

His eyelid opens to the rich graded darkness of midnight. He gratefully downs a cup of cool tea set down beside him, and his head moves toward the source of light in an adjacent room. “Doctor? Are you still awake?” _Ah, good, I can speak again._

A brief rustling comes from the next room followed by the doctor holding a candlestick. His eyes are bright with vigor, but the bags underneath betray his exhaustion from hours of reading. Nevertheless, he moves toward Ginko with a spritely spring in his step. Ginko has never seen someone so thrilled to approach him, especially given that he has been nothing but a burden to the physician so far. He decides to bask in this feeling while it lasts, before he is inevitably recognized as an unwelcome nuisance and turned away.

“Ah, I see our dashing stranger has awoken! Your fever broke an hour ago. Hold on, I’ll heat up some dashi for you to drink. You should be able to start eating solid food by tomorrow morning.” Putting the candle down next to Ginko, he makes these preparations, all the while humming animatedly. Ginko turns his head to watch the physician calmly, in rapt appreciation of the man’s lithe frame crouching over the coals, embraced as he is on one side by their warm light and firm pools of blackness on the other.

The moment stands, holds, and is finally broken as the doctor turns to pour the dashi into a bowl and takes a seat beside the mushishi’s futon, face screwed up in candlelit anticipation. _He’s adorable like this,_ Ginko quietly confers to himself.

Adashino, no longer able to hold himself in, pipes up. “And I think in the meantime I’ve cracked this mystery with the fish!”

“Oh?” Ginko replies, skeptically raising his eyebrow and leaning on his side to fully face the doctor.

“Well, you gave me the idea with your feverish ramblings--’moonlight musk’--You see, it’s the moon! The hare in the moon must be some kind of mushi! Over the past moonphase this mischievous mushi has abandoned its dutiful rice-pounding and instead began ejaculating its spectral semen through the moonlight, making the fish pregnant with its children! Isn’t that right?”

Ginko smirks at the doctor’s mirthful conjecture, but widens his eye when he realizes, “Actually, that’s not too far off.”

“Not too far off?! I thought my reasoning was flawless! I’ve been researching the matter for hours now…”

“Mm. Well, if it’s true, how will you go about placating this rabbit when it’s all the way up in the moon? And why has it chosen the fish in this area to carry its doomed progeny anyways?”

“Hmmm, I still can’t figure those parts out.” Adashino casts his face down and stares at the candle’s flame, as if looking for inspiration.

Ginko breaks the doctor’s focus with a request. “Will you fetch that shamisen from the porch?”

Adashino looks up, perplexed. “My shamisen? I put it in the storage shed earlier today, but I can go get it.” _Does he need music to think?_

“Good. You do that.” As the doctor moves toward the shed, Ginko goes out to relieve himself, and cleans himself up a bit. He comes back inside as he sees the doctor return with the instrument, which glows an ethereal gold in the dark.

The doctor’s eager face reflects the light brightly as phosphorescent mushi leisurely swim around him. Ginko drinks in the sight, before pulling out a cigarette to commence his Sherlock speech.

He is interrupted before he can start as the doctor swipes the stick from his fingers.

“Nuh-uh, you’re still recuperating! No smoking for another day--doctor’s orders!”

Ginko’s amused visage darkens to a scowl. “All right, if you say so, I’ll put on incense instead, but we’ll need it around that thing--it’s attracting them worse than I do.”

“This? Was my playing so good that I attracted mushi? Where are they right now? I wonder if I can sense them somehow if you point them out?”

Ginko side-eyes him as he rises and fixes the incense in place. “And when did your playing get measurably better? A few nights ago? I take it you’ve been playing non-stop since then…”

“Well, I didn’t yesterday, because I was taking care of you, or tonight, because I was researching...but...yes. How did you know?”

“That’s when the fish started being impregnated in large numbers.”

“But what does my shamisen have to do with it?”

Ginko makes a motion to pull a ghost cigarette from his mouth and exhales, fixing his gaze to some distant horizon as he begins the story.

“There’s a legend that long ago, a talented shamisen player had a forbidden love. His music was known throughout the region, but nothing could satisfy him, not the fame nor the admirers nor the myriad marriage proposals, for his lover was betrothed to another, and rejected him as the wedding approached.”

Adashino stills himself, hanging onto every word.

“The night before the wedding, the musician serenaded his beloved in a last ditch attempt to regain his lover’s favor. He poured his heart and soul into every chord. The villagers gave him a wide berth, whispering scornfully at his shamelessness, but invisible to them, mushi danced all around him, pleased with the sound, and even the full moon itself showed him favor. But still he was rebuffed by the one he desired. Dejected, he made his way into the forest, led subconsciously by the mushi who so enjoyed his music. After walking for hours, he lost sight of the path, and moved toward a distant light. Eventually, he approached a crowd of mushi in the shape of humans, and joined them, playing his heartbreak for them.

“The mushi around him pitied him, and, pleased with his playing, offered him _kouki,_ a drink of golden light drawn from the river of life. Those who drink too much of it become unbound from the mortal plane, and join the realm of mushi.

“Our lover boy was disillusioned with human existence, so he drank without hesitation and continued playing through the night as the mushi gamboled about him. As the dark hours progressed and dawn approached, his song grew more inspired, and he felt the boundaries between his human form, his instrument, and the music itself, dissolve. As the moon set and the first light of morning glazed the sky, there was no more man to be found in his place, only a lone shamisen and bachi infused with his moonlit passion and sorrow.

“Since then, it is said that those who can channel the soul of this instrument reawaken the player and his inspiration. Their playing attracts mushi associated with health and fertility, and, when the enchantment is particularly strong, rabbit-mushi that live in sea-reflected moonbeams get... _excited_...and well…” he smirks, “You saw the results of their own ‘forbidden love.’”

Adashino looks down at his instrument and raises his eyebrows. “What a troublemaker you are.”

“Where did you get it, anyway?” Ginko muses, resting his chin on a palm.

The doctor looks up again and answers. “Another traveling mushishi. He said it brought good luck and health. And I guess in some ways it did--it made my porch warm even in the chill of night, and my cherry tree is blossoming early.” _Fertility mushi--a polite way to say sexy horndog mushi--that would explain the...arousing...effect this stranger has had on me today. I wonder if he felt it too? Maybe that’s how he figured it all out._ “And look at you! I would have thought it’d take at least another day for you to be as well as you are now.”

“Ah, but to bring fertility and health here, you had to siphon it from elsewhere. For all we know, that’s how I got sick in the first place.”

Adashino rubs his chin. “Oh, maybe.”

Ginko reaches over and squeezes the doctor’s knee. “Well, now it’s resolved. Thank you for taking care of me while I was in such a vulnerable state. Let’s both try and sleep through the rest of the night. We can talk more tomorrow.” He smiles warmly, and Adashino returns the gaze for a beat, then two, then indulges in a third, three whole heartbeats of looking Ginko in the eye, before moving for his own futon and dousing the candle. “Good night.” His grin takes far longer than three heartbeats to dissolve.

“Good night.” Ginko replies, and steals a glimpse of the doctor beaming in the dark from across the room. _He’s cute when he smiles. I think I want to see more of that smile of his._ Ginko’s face also sits fixed in a gentle grin. His eye follows the lazy movements of the mushi in the room for a while longer--for once he is not annoyed by their presence--before he drifts off.

\-------------

“Good morning.”

Ginko’s disposition is sunny as the mid-morning rays that have begun their angular descent along the doctor’s face. The industrious mushishi is presiding over a pan of oddly-shaped fish filets, cigarette smoke making a path overhead.

Adashino wipes the sand from his eyes and, seeing the trail of smoke, whisks himself over to the other man and snatches the cig out from his lips. “I said no smoking for a day after your fever broke! I know I slept in, but not _that_ much time has passed!”

Ginko’s face is a combination of shock and displeasure. “Hey, is this the thanks I get for making you breakfast?”

“One full day. 12 hours.”

“You thought it would take twice as long for my fever to break in the first place, so I am taking the liberty of cutting all your time allowances in half from here on in.” Ginko smirks at the doctor playfully. “Now give me back my cigarette.”

Adashino makes to hand it back reluctantly, attempting to maintain a mask of stern composure. It doesn’t last long: as the doctor lowers the cigarette for Ginko to take, the mushishi surprises him by casually retrieving the stick with his mouth, in the process brushing warm lips against his proffering fingers and letting them linger as he takes a drag, before pulling away, looking satisfied with himself.

It’s too much for the doctor, especially at this time of day. He turns hastily away, hiding his flushed cheeks, as well as another appendage that has experienced a sudden rush of blood. “I’m going to clean up and grab some of the good sencha from the back shed see you soon!” he offers in his escape.

Ginko glances at the empty doorway and chuckles to himself.

\-----------------

The two men distribute the fish, rice, and tea and sit across the coal pit from each other. After not eating for a full day, Ginko has a single-minded focus on the food, and begins wolfing it down, leaving Doctor Adashino to break the silence.

“So, I don’t think we’ve properly introduced ourselves.” Ginko raises his head. “I’m Adashino. I went to the country school a couple towns over and apprenticed with a physician here to learn medicine, but in everything else I am self-taught. I enjoy studying all aspects of life, and I’m particularly fascinated by mushi--as you were informed, I collect mushi-related artifacts. I was hoping to buy such things from you, or at least hear some of your stories, if you’re willing.” Adashino hopes he is adequately reining in his eagerness.

Ginko nods congenially. “Yes, we can talk business after breakfast. My name is Ginko, by the way. As for stories, well, what sort of story would you like to hear?”

Adashino considers for a moment.

“Well, first tell me about yourself. How is it that your coloring is so strange, and you wear Dutch-style clothes? Are you a foreigner? If so, I must say your Japanese is perfect.”

Ginko huffs a laugh. “I’m not sure a foreigner would be able to connect well enough with the local landscape to be a mushishi--so no, I am not a foreigner--at least as far as I know. But yes, my clothes are--I bought them off of a traveling merchant--he was selling them for cheap, and they are convenient for walking through many different landscapes.”

“Ohhh. That’s concerning, actually--you know sometimes they execute foreigners who don’t come through the designated trade ports, right? If that merchant was selling them so cheap, you may be wearing the clothes of a dead man.”

“Mm, I had considered that possibility. But they haven’t brought me any bad luck that my mere presence wouldn’t already attract, so perhaps they were simply traded with foreigners in some underhanded way, outside the laws of the shogunate, and that’s how they came to be so cheap.”

“One hopes. What about your hair and eye, then, and what do you mean by ‘at least as far as I know?’”

Ginko’s easy smile flattens, and he closes his eye for a moment.

“I don’t know. I have no memory of my life from before I was about ten… My unusual coloring and missing eye probably have something to do with a mushi called _Tokoyami_ that eats memories. I suspect it was attracted to me when I was young and engulfed me, but I don’t know its nature or whether it still actively affects me. However, it is still present: in my left eye socket there is a blackness deeper than a natural shadow--it resides there.”

“Really? Can I see?”

“No, like I said, it eats memory--it’s dangerous. At that, you’d do best to not be so curious about mushi phenomena. Humans who become too tangled with that other world tend to be drawn into it, losing their human souls, like that shamisen player.”

Adashino twists his lips before coyly replying, “Well if you heard the music, perhaps you wouldn’t be so sure that his soul’s gone from the world.”

The mushishi frowns, “I’m being serious. You ought to be more careful about these artifacts you collect. They’re not toys to be trifled with--you probably have something dangerous stowed back there, just waiting to be released.”

They sit in silence for a few beats, at an impasse.

“What about my shamisen? I don’t have to get rid of it now, do I, now that we know it’s possessed?”

Ginko murmurs in thought. “It won’t do too much harm as long as you don’t play it very often. Save it for festivals at most--I would say Hanami, but I think the fish population will need to recover from the past few weeks, eh?”

“Okay, I think I can handle that.” Adashino tries to brighten his demeanor, but is still deflated from the admonishment.

Ginko peers at his new friend, and offers a conciliatory smile. “Look, I don’t mean to penalize you for your interest in mushi. I myself am fascinated by them and often travel to remote places just to find new ones. But living mushi are not objects to be collected. They are wild things that run on instinct, and it is important to understand and respect them. I worry that some unscrupulous mushishi or merchant may put you or your village in danger by selling you something that can’t be contained in a storage shed, something cursed.” _Something cursed, like me._

Imbued with a newfound solemnity, Adashino looks Ginko in the eye and nods. “I will try to be more careful in the future. And you are welcome to tour my shed and point out anything you think may be dangerous. I don’t want my curiosity to put the village at risk.”

“And yourself?”

“I am responsible for myself. I accept the consequences of the risks I take on my own.”

Ginko reluctantly concedes. _There’s nothing I can tell him now that wouldn’t just repeat what I said before. It’s up to him now. Besides, it’s not like I don’t frequently put my life at risk in my line of work._ He momentarily remembers the emptiness that began to fill him from the feet up, the simultaneous peace and terror he felt as the mountain absorbed him, before Kaya interrupted the procedure and took his place. He shakes off the recent memory, returning his consciousness to the disquieted man before him and his desire to perk him up.

“Well, on that note, let me show you things that you may be interested in adding to your collection, and then we can take a tour of that shed.”

\-------------

Four hours, three more misshapen fish filets, two encounters with possibly-dangerous-but-dormant mushi, five ghost stories, and a number that Adashino dare not count of seemingly innocent finger brushings and shoulder squeezes later, Ginko prepares to leave.

“You sure you don’t want to wait until tomorrow morning to head off? You’re welcome to stay an extra night,” Adashino offers.

Ginko smirks at him, box already on his back. “If I complied with that request every time I visited a place, I’d leave a wake of destruction wherever I went.”

“You must be quite the heartbreaker,” the doctor remarks coolly, burying his disappointment.

Ginko gives him a strange look and then huffs a laugh. In lieu of replying he claps Adashino on the back reassuringly. The doctor peers at him, searching, but accepts the gesture. The mushishi offers a parting squeeze on the shoulder.

Ginko breaks off and begins walking toward the path before craning his neck around. “I’ll be back in time,” he smiles.

Their eyes meet one more time, for just a moment, before the mushishi turns toward the path ahead. The doctor eyes the man until he’s out of sight before finally retiring to his home. _Until next time, then._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shamisen ships it.


	2. Views from the shed

In the coming moons, Doctor Adashino has trouble keeping his mind from that handsome and unusual man. The day after he left, Adashino notices a stray white hair on the pillow of the spare futon where Ginko’s fever broke. Plucking it up, he examines it carefully, places this small relic in a vial, and squirrels it away onto an unassuming shelf in his storage shed. Periodically, in passing, he glances to that hiding spot and allows a giddy fluttering to fill his belly.

There’s just something about this mushishi, thinking about him, that blurs the physician’s senses and clouds his head with a pleasant dizziness. Adashino knows he ought to rein in his fantasies, knows that when Ginko said he would be back, he was lying, much like all the others. But then again, the others had made their use of him before speeding off into the distance, away from him forever. _I guess we’ll just have to wait and see._

He wasn’t lying, at the very least.

Hayfever season having begun in earnest, the village doctor walks back uphill from the market, his mind on the efficient gathering and production of allergy medicine, when he spots a familiar silhouette crouching on his porch. _Can it be?_ Cursing his nearsightedness, he hastens his pace until he can make out the mop of white hair, a trail of smoke wafting up to the midday blue sky. His heart swells.

Ginko, for his part, finds his whole body going slack as he catches sight of the doctor, and smiles sheepishly at him. Adashino offers a shy lopsided smile in response, puts down the groceries, and sits next to Ginko, squeezing his knee, letting his hand linger there. “What brings you here today, dashing stranger?”

Ginko huffs a laugh at this call-back to their first mutually lucid encounter, and inwardly blushes at the refrain of ‘dashing stranger’ and the implication it carries that Adashino thinks of him as some sort of swashbuckling heartthrob.

“Not a stranger any longer, I hope,” he says, his smile turning coy. “I found some things in my travels that you might find interesting, and I want to become better acquainted with your collection, especially your books.” _And I want to become better acquainted with you._ He unabashedly places his hand on top of where the doctor is grasping his knee, pushing himself up.

“What all is in that pack? I gathered some woodland fruits--herbs, roots, berries, mushrooms--on my way here. We could make a feast of it if you so desire. For my part, I’m _starving._ ” Ginko draws out these last words, his eye fixed on the doctor as he passes through the threshold. In addition to hunger, the mushishi is also feeling that hyperactive and drunk phase of sleep deprivation when the mind attempts to compensate for the body’s exhaustion: although he had initially planned to arrive around sunset, on the eve of his return to the seaside village, he could barely even nap, such was his anticipation. After a couple hours of lying down awake, Ginko gave up on rest and pushed on with his trek through dawn.

The doctor agrees heartily to this turn of events, making a mental note to work on the allergy medication-- _well, later._

Their conversation as they prepare their impromptu feast is light and breezy, catching up. Adashino has purchased a new, definitely-not-possessed shamisen and has been practicing.

“It’s pretty slow now that I don’t have a mushi teaching my hands, but my playing is passable, at least.”

Ginko tells the doctor about the vast Karibusa library he was able to visit recently, how it is presided over by a scribe fated to spend a majority of her life transferring a powerful mushi from her leg into paper.

“Ironically, she hates the stories that are most useful for sealing away the mushi and securing her eventual freedom--the mushi in her leg is only subdued by stories of the successful killing and imprisoning of mushi. Most mushishi relish in the destruction of the spirits, and it’s refreshing to meet another true mushishi, intent not on the hunt, but on restoration of the balance.”

Doctor Adashino senses the wistfulness in Ginko’s voice and for a moment wishes that he could fill such a role in some way, if only he could see the damn things. He hesitates, and diverts the subject. “I look forward to hearing some of the stories buried in that cellar.”

“Mm, some are very interesting, but most are eerie and violent, not suited to a sunny day such as this. Maybe tonight. What have you been reading lately?”

“Oh, thanks for asking! As you know, I have an interest in language and foreign books. About a month ago, a peddler came around town carrying some exotic books from far to the west, though not so far as the Dutch. He sold them to me for cheap, because no one he encountered could decipher the language, and unsold, they were becoming a burden to him. The characters looked similar to ones I had encountered before, but only quoted in a text I have that was translated into Chinese. In a stroke of fortune, I discovered that this Chinese text was in fact the same as one of the peddler’s texts, so I have been decoding the language and slowly translating some of the other texts. Once I have a better handle of it I’ll show my work to you if you’re interested--some of the text is poetry, and I was thinking of putting it to music with the shamisen.”

Ginko smiles as he cuts up the gathered roots. “I’d like that.”

They continue their preparations, basking in this strange combination of domesticity and newness--there is so much still for them to learn about each other.

\----------------

After they finish eating and clearing up, Ginko lets out a long-overdue yawn and looks out at the intense colors of the warm afternoon. “I think I’ll take a nap outside. That okay?” Adashino nods, and mentions that he had been meaning to gather some medicinal plants in the woods anyway. They part, sated, and Ginko, having checked the shadows of the doctor’s cherry tree for serpents, dozes off in the filtered shade.

The sun crawls along the sky and just as the golden light preceding sunset begins to bathe the landscape, Ginko’s eyes flicker open. _Wow, I was out like a light. Wonder what the doctor’s up to now._ He stretches languidly, lights a mushi cigarette, and shuffles into the house.

“Hey.”

He hears a grunt of acknowledgement coming from the doctor’s office and heads in that direction. Approaching the seated physician from behind, the Ginko brazenly leans his crossed forearms on the other man’s right shoulder, peering over it to see what he’s up to. The doctor is filling small medicine packages with carefully portioned amounts of materials distributed in various labeled mortars around the desk. From his perch, Ginko teases the doctor, murmuring words into his ear.

“I’m a little disappointed that this time I didn’t have you to pet my hair and sing me awake, but I suppose one can’t always be so lucky.” As Ginko’s hot breath puffs into Adashino’s ear, the doctor can feel the hairs on his neck stand up, feels his heart rate increase and his face heat.

“Oooohhh...you remember...that?”

Chuckling to himself, Ginko rises up and leans against a nearby wall, giving the doctor a little space.

“Mhmm. It was very kind of you to do that for me. I remember not understanding all the words to some of the songs though. What language were you singing in?”

“Korean.”

“How do you know Korean? No one else I’ve ever met speaks it.”

Adashino pauses for a moment, weighing his trust for the other man before responding.

“Many years ago, the ruins of a ship and a very lucky--or unlucky, depending on how you see it--man washed up on the shore of a nearby village. The people there took him in, and eventually he learned Japanese and married one of the local women. They had a child who grew up learning both languages, their writing and their songs, and well, here I am today.”

“And you accused me of being a foreigner!” Ginko teases.

“Accused? I was just looking for a kindred spirit.”

Ginko puffs thoughtfully on his cigarette for a moment. “Where are your parents nowadays?”

“Oh they’re well, still living in their home by the sea. I visit them every month or so but…” He hadn’t planned on bringing the conversation into this territory, and scrunches his eyebrows together a moment. “I don’t stay for long.”

Ginko cocks his head.

“They-they’re always trying to set me up with some girl.” _Play it cool._ “Some of them are so young I remember holding them as babies. Those two really don’t know when to stop.” He squeaks out an uneasy laugh.

“Ah.” Ginko doesn’t pursue the subject further.

_Yokatta..._

“Anyway,” the doctor recovers, having finished a box of the medicine packets. “Lullabies are for going to sleep, not waking up, so you’ll have to wait until bedtime to hear me sing again.” At that, he angles his head toward the mushishi in forced aloofness. “I could stand to take a break. What would you like to do now, sleepyhead?”

Ginko considers, and ashes his cigarette, knowing its ember will not be welcomed in the doctor’s library. “I want to look at some of your books. Maybe you could show me the ones you’re translating?”

Adashino nods and rises. “Okay,” he says, stretching his arms. “This is around the time I start to work on translation anyway.”

The pair walk to the back shed and Adashino takes a seat at another desk while Ginko starts browsing the eclectic collection. “There’s a short poem I’m very close to finishing, and I can already begin to catch its theme,” the doctor mumbles before commencing his work. Ginko grunts a response of good luck.

The library is organized into sections by origin, and then by genre. He sees the expected classics. A mushishi guidebook catches his eye and he walks it over to Adashino. “This guide is representative of the problematic ideas about mushi I mentioned earlier. It contains useful information, but be wary of its tone and intent.” The doctor looks up and narrows his eyebrows at it. “Duly noted.”

The mushishi returns the offending text to its place and moves on to look at the Dutch books. He cannot read the language, but begins flipping through some of them, looking for pictures. A few minutes pass this way before he sees a symbol he recognizes. He pulls the book out and brings it over to the doctor. “Adashino-sensei, are you harboring forbidden texts?” he says in a mock-stern tone. “Don’t tell me you’re a secret Christian.”

Adashino laughs at the suggestion. “I’m banking on any authorities who come by to see that I am merely a man of learning, and moreover a devout Shinto practitioner, as evidenced by my interest in mushi. But on that note, the book I am using to translate these poems is a religious text in a similar tradition to Christianity. I kind of like this one better than the Christian holy book--the latter is quite dry and overly violent, and plus the calligraphy in the peddler’s version of the former is more elegant than the stilted Dutch characters.”

Ginko looks at the text and admires the flowing marks. “They are nice--like boats on a river or a festival procession.” He returns to the bookshelf to put the Dutch religious text back in its place and picks a book out at random to flip through, finding a page with interesting typesetting. Again, he pads over to Adashino.

“Is this what Dutch poetry looks like?”

The doctor snorts at this. “In a manner of speaking, it could be considered poetry.” Ginko looks at him quizzically.

“It’s mathematics. This looks like an integral calculation, not super interesting…” He flips through the textbook, looking for a particular page. “Ah! But here, this is poetry.” Ginko leans over to look at the page.

“Hmm, the other page looked prettier.”

The doctor pipes up, turning the pages, “This part of the book is about the equations that describe wave-patterns, like the motion of water or the vibration of a string. Some of this stuff goes over my head, but its implications are astounding.”

“You mean this book aims to capture and symbolize the essence of motion? That seems impossible...and concerning.”

“Mm, it simplifies the nature of motion a lot in order to say anything. But still, it’s a start. Who knows what people will discover in the coming years?”

“I worry about that sometimes…”

“So do I.” Adashino squeezes Ginko’s left hand in his own for a moment before pulling away. The mushishi returns the physics book to its place on the shelf and moves to the Chinese section. There he finds a Japanese translation of the Tao Te Ching, and contents himself reading it for a while. _Although it’s a foreign text, this ought to be required reading for aspiring mushishi,_ he ponders.

After some time, the doctor breaks the silence.

“I think I have it! Come and listen, Ginko-san.”

The mushishi rolls up the Taoist text and heads to the desk, leaning his hands on the low back rest of the doctor’s chair, his chest brushing gently against the back of the other man’s head. Adashino manages to remain unflapped by the sudden contact. “Here goes:

“Although you may consume sweet desserts, roast meat, and pure wine.  
Know that if you consume water in dream,  
When you get up from the dream you will be thirsty  
For the water you consume in a dream causes you no benefit.”

“Hmmm, sounds like Buddhist philosophy.” The mushishi muses, “But the poem also reminds me of a mushi that traps its victims in splendorous dreamscapes while, in reality, it sucks all the moisture from their bodies. All that’s left is dust.”

The physician tips his head up, wide-eyed.

“Please tell me that is a mythical mushi that you’ve never seen in real life.”

Ginko smirks at him. “There are plenty of mushi I haven’t seen...yet.” He basks in the terror on the doctor’s face before relenting. “But the mushi is actually quite frail. It’s drawn out by splashing the host with water. And it’s not one you’d have to worry about--it doesn’t live in wetlands like this.”

Adashino lets his body relax, his head now resting solidly on Ginko’s torso. “That’s a shame, or I could have found a more creative way to wake you up under that cherry tree, besides singing.”

Ginko screws up his face into mock consternation. “Just when I was beginning to trust you.” _I want to know all the ways you can think of waking me._ Adashino’s mirthful grin breaks the mushishi’s concentration, and his expression softens. For the first time during one of their held gazes, the doctor stops counting his heartbeats.

“Hey, have you translated any more of those poems?”

The doctor jolts his head back to the translation work on his desk and shuffles the papers around. “Yes, I have some partial translations...but they’re a little more, -ahem- ...secular...”

Ginko raises his eyebrow. “Well now you have to share them.”

“...Okay. Here’s one I like:

“I went road-passing with my beloved in a rose garden.  
From lack of awareness, I cast a glance upon a rose.  
The beloved said to me, “May you be ashamed,  
My cheeks are here and you are looking at roses.”

“That one’s nice, but what’s a rose?”

“I’m guessing it’s some sort of pink fruit or flower, something the color of flushed cheeks. I can’t find the equivalent yet in the Chinese text.”

A mischievous grin crosses Ginko’s visage. “So like the color you turned when I reminded you about petting me while I was sick?” He moves his hands to grasp the doctor’s upper arms for a moment before releasing them and standing up straight.

“Oh, stop.” Adashino playfully swats at him. “Anyway, the poetry is interesting--it meanders through lavishness and stark asceticism. This one, I think, steers more toward the former.”

“Hmm, maybe.” Ginko peers over the Japanese translation. “But maybe it’s allegorical: in a similar vein as the other one, it advocates turning from the material world, where here the beloved is enlightenment, while the rose is the wheel.”

Adashino glances at the mushishi critically. “Is Buddhism the most foreign spiritual tradition you know of?”

“No, I was just over there reading the Tao Te Ching as well,” the mushishi defends. “Besides, my expertise is in local spirits--I can’t know everything if it’s not relevant to my practice…” He hesitates, not wanting to insult the doctor’s efforts. “But I think it’s admirable that you aspire to learn so much,” he offers, giving the man’s shoulder a brief squeeze before swiveling his body to lean on the table.

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” Adashino relishes in the praise. “Anyhow, you bring up an interesting point about the subjects of the poem being allegorical. In this case, however, since this text is part of a Western monotheistic tradition, it may be more fitting for the beloved to be God, or perhaps the eternal soul, while the rose is overindulgence in this mortal coil.”

“Same diff?”

“Not quite, since Buddhists don’t believe in an eternal human soul.”

“Hmm, that would be a fundamental misinterpretation. I suppose this poet may have more in common with me than a Buddhist than I thought.”

Adashino considers this. “Well, I think his views have about as much to do with a Buddhist’s as they do with yours and mine--that is, assuming our views align significantly!” He lets out a skittish giggle, suddenly aware that he’s judging the other man on only a handful of interactions. “The Western notion of a soul is...different than ours. They believe in a single creator, who has enough agency to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Various Western sects have some slight differences as to how much they anthropomorphize their god--the Christians of course believe their immense deity begot a human son--Jesus--many years ago, while the peers of this poet--Muslims, they’re called--think it absurd for such an abstract and great entity to have had borne a human child. Anyway, Westerners tend to believe that the soul is the part of a human that has the capacity to have faith in and love their god, while the body and the world are mere vessels. They would probably see mushi as demonic aberrations, rather than emanations of a common life energy, the same source as our souls and all natural life in the world.”

Ginko ponders the doctor’s words, moving his hand to and from his mouth and exhaling as though puffing on a mushi cigarette.

“It’s cute how you do that whenever you’re not allowed to smoke.” Adashino observes, grinning.

“What?”

“Moving your hands like that.”

Ginko glances down at how his fingers rest on his lips, suddenly aware that he is not actually holding a cigarette, and blushes at the realization, moving his hand back down to his side.

“What’s that I see?” the doctor teases, “A rose?”

The mushishi shoots him a spiteful glare before regaining his composure. “They do, it seems.”

“Eh?”

“Our views. Align.” Ginko regards the other man meaningfully. Adashino looks back with blank appreciation, leaving the mushishi to clear his throat and change the subject, careful to keep his hand away from his mouth.

“I wonder if some Westerners view the deity’s son as a symbol for the state of their souls, since both share the lot of a godly soul in a mortal vessel.”

“You got it. Although I hear there are so many different brands of the religion, if you said that in front of the wrong sect, they might tear you limb from limb for not adhering to orthodoxy!”

“It’s good we seal our borders off then, if we have to fear such barbarity.”

Adashino flinches at the implication, his playful expression dimming.

 _Shimatta._ “Sorry, I mean...not...I...I’m sure your father is a very good man!” the mushishi spits out, flustered. “Sorry.”

The doctor sighs and moves his right hand atop Ginko’s, squeezing it and briefly massaging it with his thumb before withdrawing and canting his body to face the mushishi. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.” His countenance retains some lingering hurt. “I guess I was just hoping…” he trails off. _That you’d be different._

“If it helps at all, people treat me like a foreigner all the time! And since my presence attracts mushi I’m used to being thrown out of places. I’m used to being... _undesirable,_ ” the mushishi offers.

The physician balks at the other man’s concession. “Why would that help? It just means that we’re both lonely outcasts.”

“Kindred spirits.” Ginko corrects, reaching his right hand to clasp the doctor’s left where it rests on the desk.

Adashino’s face relaxes into a weak smile, allowing the tension to melt. He pulls his hand back, crossing his arms over his body for a moment before standing. “Let me show you something.”

The avid collector fetches a paper mache globe from a nearby shelf. He weighs it carefully, turning it over from hand to hand before making his case.

“Do you really think it is the best policy for us to remain so closed to the outside world? This is where we are--this is Japan.” He traces a finger over the small chain of islands. “And this is all the rest of the world.” He offers the globe to Ginko, peering critically at him.

Ginko considers the sphere that has been handed to him, the immensity it represents and the relative smallness of his provincial existence.

“I think I understand your point. But while this globe to you represents excitement and new opportunities, to me it also represents an awesome danger to our way of life. I’m sure you know what those Westerners are doing in China, how much of the latter’s population is now poisoned by opium?”

“Yes, I know.” Adashino sighs. “You’re right about that, there is a risk. But they have such knowledge and such wonders… And from reading all these books, seeing their art, from simply being who I am, I cannot accept that it would be so terrible to ease trade and travel relations. It just can’t be as awful as the shogunate would have you believe.”

The mushishi ponders the doctor’s words, maneuvering the globe, gazing at the vast lands beyond the horizon.

“I guess I also just wish that there were more people like me around,” Adashino adds.

Ginko looks up at him thoughtfully. “I’m sorry, again. I concede that maybe there is a better system than what we have right now, but I don’t think I can fully agree with you. In my profession I must concern myself with balance, and…” He allows the globe to rock precariously from the palm of his left hand to the tips of his fingers. “This globe is not conducive to balance.” The sphere wobbles on its perch.

“Hey, be careful with that!” the doctor snaps, snatching the globe from the mushishi before it can fall. He scrunches his eyebrows and moves off to put it back in its place. When he returns, Ginko is wearing a mild smile, a sparkle in his eye.

“What are you smiling about?” he responds with a half-smirk.

“Not two minutes before this argument I had concluded that our views were pretty much the same,” the mushishi replies, raising his eyebrow comically.

Adashino snorts out a laugh. Ginko pushes off from the desk.

“C’mere,” he says warmly, holding his arms out. They embrace firmly and at length. Ginko breathes in the doctor’s scent, the pungent masculinity of his neck cut by the musty smell of old parchment and the crisp tang of medicinal herbs. An inner urge compels him to nibble at the tender skin but he restrains himself. _There’s still so much I don’t know about him, and I don’t want to complicate our friendship, fragile as it is right now._ He contents himself with a quick nuzzle, humming in pleasure, before breaking the hug.

His nuzzling motion draws out an unbecoming moan from the doctor, and the mushishi chuffs at his handiwork, but lets the moment stand without comment.

“Let’s reheat those leftovers from lunch, I’m getting hungry again.”

\-----------

The pair lie on futons which sit on opposite sides of Adashino's room. Ginko is fast asleep, still tired from the lack of rest the night before, despite his afternoon nap. Adashino, on the other hand, stares restlessly at the ceiling of his minka.

He has known the wandering mushishi for no more than three cumulative days, but never before has he been so intimate or free with his thoughts and intellectual endeavors. _Am I being too reckless with my heart? He has already shown potential to hurt me...but at the same time he seems to value my mind, my feelings, my identity._

 _My identity._ His body tenses, resisting the thought spiral of despair that comes whenever he reminds himself that he will never be fully integrated in his community, will never live a truly normal life.

 _Does he know?_ The doctor is aware that some of the merchants and mushishi he has dealt with have advertised his business, this outpost far from the floating world where travelers may trade exotic items for other desirable goods--

_and services._

But Adashino does not advertise himself, merely offers it when prompted, and Ginko has not asked, despite his general flirtatiousness.

Sometimes it seems like the white-haired mushishi wants something from him, from the way he looks at Adashino.

 _But, maybe...Maybe that is just how friends look at each other._ The doctor has not had a close friend before, having been a bookish loner as a child. He was still quite young when chosen for apprenticeship to the elderly physician before him. Adashino shudders, and pushes away that part of his life, returning his thoughts to the man sleeping on the other side of the room.

Although he remains thrilled to have a true friend, something in him deadens thinking that their relationship may have its limits in their henceforth established intellectual intimacy. He wants more, he wants…

_I want._

The familiar swelling, fluttering hope fills his chest and fogs his mind in humid fantasy. The two men have exchanged chaste touches throughout the day, and he replays the moments, imagining their alternate paths, savoring the accompanying sensations.

It is only as he draws out the image of Ginko gliding down his torso and taking him fully into his mouth that the doctor realizes how his right hand has similarly made this descent. He glances to the other side of the room, checking that the mushishi is sound asleep. Careful to regulate his breathing so as not to awaken the object of his affection, Adashino jerks off in muffled passion, his heartbeat quickening with every sound that threatens to betray him. The risk excites him, and it is not long before he comes into a corner of his bedsheet.

In the hormonal wave washing over him, he barely manages to wipe himself off with and furtively tuck the soiled and guilty patch of blanket underneath his futon. This done, sleep overtakes him before shame can seep its way in.

\----------------

The next day speeds by as the pair go to market, eat, and trade--goods, just goods, not services. They share more congenial conversation, but it lacks the personal depth of the past day’s discussion. After the Adashino’s bout of passion the night before, he finds it difficult to look the mushishi in the eye, and is careful to avoid touching the other man. Ginko, for his part, worries that perhaps his indiscretion and the ensuing argument had wounded the doctor more deeply than he thought at the time, that it was presumptuous to embrace the man and declare the conflict over.

Ginko senses that he may not be welcome in this place much longer.

They part with uneasy smiles, neither looking back at the other when the mushishi walks up the path back into the woods.

\----------------------

As summer progresses, the villagers notice a change in the doctor’s energy--he seems quieter, more solemn. He continues his intellectual endeavors as usual, but is prone to distraction, and his neighbors have to drag him out of his study to enjoy Tanabata with the rest of the town. Even then, he is like a specter at the festival. The woman who had helped host Ginko when he first arrived notices the doctor staring longingly out at the sea and approaches him cautiously.

“I’m sure he’ll come back,” she says, breaking his melancholic trance. “He likes you, I can tell.”

“What?” he snaps back in flushed embarrassment.

The village woman snorts and shoots him a warm, conspiratorial smile. She grabs his arm, pulling him in the direction of the festivities. “You two are not stars like Orihime and Hikoboshi, so stop acting so sullen. He will come back to you because he wants to, and because he can.” They reach a bamboo patch and she hands him some colored paper and ink. “But if you’re not sure, maybe you could wish for it.” The doctor gapes at her, passively accepting the writing materials.

“And if you don’t do it, I will--although my husband may begrudge a lapse in my sewing skills,” she laughs to herself. “It isn’t fit for our doctor to be so lovesick.” She begins to notice Adashino’s profound mortification that her intrusion has caused, and resolves to give him a little more space. “Do it, please, and join us in celebrating after.”

Riotous exclamations of _Yatta!_ erupt in the distance, and the village woman adds merrily, “Or at least join us in case someone gets hurt! Farewell, sensei,” she bows, before darting off in the direction of the noise.

Adashino stands dumbfounded for a few minutes before calming. _Does everyone know?_ He eventually snaps out of the thought cycle, and looks down at the paper and ink in his hand.

“Well, it can’t hurt.”

\-------------------

It didn’t.

About a full moon cycle after Tanabata, the doctor, after a late night studying a Dutch calculus text, awakens to a knock at the door. Grumbling about the prospect of having a patient so early in the morning, he quickly slips into his usual black yukata and opens the entrance.

“Oh.” He hopes the mushishi before him cannot hear his heart palpitations. “It’s you.”

Ginko pulls the cigarette from his mouth, his expression taut with focus. “It’s me.”

“Come, come in. I’ll make breakfast.”

“I can’t stay long. I’m here for a jar of green earth in your storage shed. There’s an urgent issue I have to deal with further up the coast. If you let me have it now, I’ll bring back more later. I have some things I could give you for collateral.”

Adashino is taken aback by the mushishi’s intensity. He leads Ginko to the shed and opens it. “You can grab that jar while I make breakfast.”

Ginko pauses and looks at the doctor critically. “Don’t you mean lunch?” The latter looks down at his shadow and up at the sun, now high in the sky. “Lunch, then.” The mushishi cracks a smile at Adashino, grasping his upper arm reassuringly.

“I gathered some mushrooms and greens on the way here--they’re in the sack on top of my box. Since you won’t have gone to the market yet we’ll have to go without fish, but with rice the forest fruits should be enough.”

Ginko turns to enter the shed, but is caught by the doctor, who grabs his hand. The impatient mushishi shoots Adashino a questioning expression.

“Thanks for having that foresight. And…” He hesitates, searching for the right words. “It’s good to see you.” His eyes shine in the late morning sun. Ginko meets his gaze with a buoyant smile.

“Okay. Let’s get to it, then.”

\----------------

Adashino has rice cooking and is chopping the mushrooms as Ginko comes in, placing the jar of earth on the floor. He rounds in on the doctor, holding a small vial between his thumb and forefinger, a cheeky grin on his face. Adashino looks up and his eyes widen, panic in his throat.

“If you’re so interested in collecting my hair, I’m probably in need of a trim.” He runs a hand through the locks above his right ear, appraising. “We could call it even for the jar of dirt,” he says, raising an eyebrow, trying to keep from busting up.

“...I-uh...I mean...I...uh…”

Light dances in Ginko’s eye, his face full of mirth. The doctor attempts to regain his composure.

“You said that a mushi made it that way! The vial was in the mushi-phenomena section of my collection!” _It makes sense, I swear I’m not obsessed with you._

_Liar._

“Well, as long as you don’t try to collect my one good eye…” Ginko’s straight face crumbles into a giggling fit.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me while I have a knife in my hand.”

Ginko screws up his face, trying multiple times to stop laughing but can’t keep his face muscles still. The laughter proves to be contagious, as Adashino cracks up at the mushishi’s inability to stop. They carry on for a few minutes, red-faced. At one point they slow down a bit, only for the doctor to start hiccuping, and it starts all over again. Eventually they are able to catch their breath and Ginko fetches some water for Adashino. Both men feel pleasantly exhausted, their bodies racked from the convulsions.

As they calm down, Ginko pulls a strand from his head and threads it carefully into the vial. “There. Now it can have a friend.” He shoots a meaningful look at the doctor, who returns it in kind.

The pair finish lunch preparations and Ginko eats voraciously, realizing that he has already spent too much time dilly-dallying. As the rushed mushishi prepares to leave, Adashino remembers something.

“Take these.” He offers the mushishi three mochi wrapped in a bamboo leaf. “I made them last night and almost forgot. They’re not perfect but I’ve just begun practicing the skill--I visited my parents a week ago and my mom finally insisted I learn. Maybe by the time you come back I’ll try making them with different flavors!”

Ginko is incredulous at the gift, unused to both friendly and maternal gestures. _Maybe he isn’t tired of me after all._ “Thank you.”

“Any time. I look forward to your return.” Adashino surprises Ginko with a hug, taking the opportunity to drink in the now-familiar herby smoke odor while he has the chance. Ginko freezes for a moment before returning the embrace. They pull apart and the mushishi gives him some parting advice.

“There will likely be an earthquake somewhere along the coast over the next few months. If all goes well with my current job, the new jar of green earth I bring back will afford you protection from the initial shock, but in the time between you will be exposed. Make sure everyone in your town knows the proper tidal wave evacuation routes and that everyone keeps enough water for a day around with them in case they become trapped by collapsed structures.”

“Duly noted. Hurry back though! I do remember the mushishi who gave me that jar said it would protect me from earthquakes. If I die in the meantime know that my spirit will haunt you for the rest of your life!” Adashino grins through the mock threat, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m sure your ghost would make an entertaining and convivial travel partner, at that,” Ginko retorts. “But I’ll be back soon, in less than a moon.” He turns to the road and waves his arm in a backwards farewell.

The doctor watches him leave, pondering the course of the morning-- _er, midday_ \--encounter. It was far more rushed than he would have liked, but this time he has a definite promise--and a timeframe--of the mushishi’s return. He sits contentedly on his porch, picking at the last of his rice. _Patience._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised meandering intellectual discussions, did I not? Sometimes I do this thing where I imagine conversations between historical figures (sometimes real, sometimes fictional) or I imagine them following me around through the day or commenting on the media I consume, and a lot of this chapter is a manifestation of that.
> 
> Poetry is Rumi, translations are from here: http://www.dar-al-masnavi.org/quatrains_trans.html
> 
> Had I read more classic Japanese literature that would be present here but headcanon!Adashino is into foreign stuff anyway so I can get away with being super uncultured wrt ancient Japanese stuff (or so I convince myself)


	3. Cooking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: explicit sex

For once, Ginko has the peace of mind to properly rest on approach to the seaside village.

Having slept for the full night before, he finds a clear pool just off the wooded path and indulges in a bath just before making it to the main road leading into town. The cool water is exquisite on his skin, which had grown unpleasantly damp in the midday heat of late summer.

 _I wonder if Adashino-sensei knows about this place,_ he ponders, dunking his head in the glistening pool. The young mushishi lazily dives down a few times, observing the benign mushi and freshwater fish that populate the clean, mountain-fed spring, and then floats on his back for a while, peering at the saturated azure above.

Recharged, he resolves to get going, stepping out onto a grassy patch to air dry. He can practically see the droplets on his skin turn to steam in the heat, but he finds it necessary to squeeze the excess water from his hair, which clings along his face and down to his shoulders in the back. _It really is getting long. Maybe I can persuade the doctor to cut it for me--he does have many talents, after all._

Ginko had made fun of the doctor for saving a strand of his hair, but he didn’t dare mention that he himself had saved a whole head of hair as a keepsake--there have been multiple times that reason has directed him to trim it back, but no matter how often it catches on branches and sticky burrs, he replays the intimate sensation of Adashino stroking it while he was sick and refrains from reaching for the scissors.

Crouching down, Ginko scrutinizes his reflection in the pond. It’s unlike the wandering mushishi to form such needless attachments, but Adashino has a way of making him open up, bringing out his sense of humor and his sentimentality. The young mushishi makes faces, practicing expressions in the still water. In his line of work, he has been taught to regard partiality for those he meets in passing as a weakness, but so long as he keeps moving--returning, yes--but never staying too long, it can’t be all that harmful.

_Right?_

The mushishi becomes suddenly self-conscious.

_What am I doing, practicing faces in a pond like a lovestruck adolescent? Time to go._

Before dressing, Ginko takes a last look at himself while standing up, contemplating the angles of his torso, the well-developed muscles of his sun-dappled shoulders, gotten by carrying his pack day in and out. Twisting around, he gazes at the taut and shapely physique of his backside and thighs, the product of countless mountain paths.

It has been strange, going through his teens without any memory of or connection to his childhood, only instinct available to guide him, shape his personality. And now he is firmly in the bloom of manhood, though he only retains memory from the past 9 years--not even half his lifespan. He’s not quite sure what to do with himself sometimes, but he gets by with his specialized knowledge and sight.

He wonders, sometimes, if the yearnings for home, for normalcy and marriage and family, would be stronger were his memory intact.

His neck suddenly prickles, and he feels eyes upon him, followed by the rustle and patter of small footsteps.

“Hey! It’s the doctor’s friend!”  
“Are you coming to visit him?”  
“Awww, that means he won’t have as much mochi for us…”  
“He said he was practicing them just for you.”  
“I think he liiikes you~!”  
“Ew, gross!”  
One child pinches another in admonishment.  
“Hey, don’t be rude! Adashino-sensei can do what he wants, cuz he’s a _grown-up._ ”  
“Plus he gives us mochi…”

Three village children come running up around his naked form, and the flustered mushishi bolts for his clothes, frantically throwing them onto his still-damp body. Disgruntled, he reaches for his pack as the giggling youngsters frolic about.

“I see this is a popular place,” he finally replies.

“Yeah!”  
“We come here every day after lunch!”  
“Are there any interesting mushi around here?”  
“Are any of them dangerous?”

The trio stare up at him, wide-eyed.

Ginko chuckles, lighting a mushi cigarette. “Not as far as I can see. The mushi in this pool appear to be in good harmony with nature.”

The kids gasp collectively.  
“There are mushi _inside_ the pond?”  
“What do they look like?”

“Like other pond-creatures, but misshapen and glowing. Don’t hold your breath too long looking for them, though. You either see them or you don’t.”

“Aww…”  
“I bet I can see one!”  
“No you can’t! Didn’t you hear him?”  
“Still, I bet I can!”  
The three kids begin stripping down and run for the pool. One of them turns back briefly. “Bye Ginko-san! I hope you and Adashino-sensei have a big wedding with lots of mochi and invite the whole town!”

Ginko is taken aback by the child’s words, sheepishly mouthing goodbye before turning for the path, his head in the clouds.

\----------------------

This time when he knocks, Adashino comes to greet him fully dressed and awake.

“Our dashing stranger is back again! It looks like you went for a swim on the way here.”

Bashfully running his right hand through the still-damp hair on his neck, Ginko beams at Adashino. The doctor offers a gentle smile in reply and leads him in.

“So tell me, what happened? Do you have the fresh green earth?”

“Yes,” the mushishi replies, rummaging in his foraging sack for the jar. “Here it is.” He retrieves it, along with a couple pale orange fruits with splashes of crimson at their bases. “And something else for you.”

The doctor accepts one of the proffered peaches, his eyes bright and eager. “Thank you. So what happened that precipitated all this green earth business? I just finished work for the day, so I’m all yours.”

“Right. So--” the mushishi pulls a scroll from his pack, sits cross-legged on a tatami mat, and puffs thoughtfully on his cigarette before diving into the story. The doctor sits across from him and begins munching on the peach.

“Further up the coast, a young boy began having recurring dreams. In these dreams, farmers made of red earth would break up clods of earth ceaselessly. With each strike, the boy could see the broken earth creeping further down, thin fractures continuing far down into the ground.

“The boy spoke about his strange dreams, but they were deemed unremarkable--that is, until others in the village began having the same dreams. Then I was called. You see, these villagers had been affected by a type of mushi, called _Jishin-taberu,_ that eats tectonic vibration. When this mushi perceives seismic activity in the near future, it activates and begins psychic motions to encourage the severity of the tectonic shifts.

“Because Jishin-taberu survives on geologically long processes, it must burrow its nerves deep into the subconscious of the earth, and it sometimes invades people’s dreams in this way. However, for the same reason, its predictions are somewhat imprecise relative to our time scale, which is why there hasn’t yet been an earthquake.” The mushishi pauses, looking gravely at some point in the distance. “But the one that will occur will be large--by the time I was able to come and pacify the Jishin-taberu, the entire town was having dreams.”

“How did you pacify it--and didn’t you say that the Jishin-taberu was red in the dream? What does it have to do with the green earth?”

“The red earth is Jishin-taberu in its active state, but when it is feeding or dormant, it turns green--as soon as the tremors begin, Jishin-taberu undergoes a metamorphosis so that it can begin to eat. But it will also change if it senses that other Jishin-taberu around it have begun to transform. Thus, all it takes is sprinkling a little bit of the green earth around where it nests--the villagers were able to figure out the location of the nest based on their visions. Then you just dig up the fresh green earth.” Ginko motions toward the jar. “This will be more effective at mitigating the effects of earthquakes than what you had before--Jishin-taberu goes into a long period of dormancy after it has fed enough, and will eventually stop eating the seismic tremors. This jar should keep this whole village safe through the next quake.”

Adashino looks at the mushishi gratefully. “Thank you. But wouldn’t it be better to scatter the feeding Jishin-taberu around the coast, so that the earthquake isn’t too bad everywhere?”

“You may do what you wish with the mushi, but it will be far less effective if it isn’t concentrated in one place,” Ginko replies. “Of the green earth we found, half was gathered for the village’s use and half I brought back to you. If I broke it into smaller portions, it would only be able to protect maybe a household here and there, not an entire town.”

“What about you?”

“I have to travel light, so I can’t be carrying dirt around with me.” Ginko shrugs, ashing his cigarette. His eye shifts to a dribble of peach juice at the corner of the doctor’s lips and how Adashino’s tongue darts to catch it, how he sucks at the sticky sheen on his lower lip before diving again into the sweet pale flesh of the fruit. “Moreover, I accept that there are urges out of my control, each with its own risks and rewards.”

“Rewards? Of being buried alive in an earthquake?”

Ginko snaps out of his peach-induced daze. “Oh, sorry, I started thinking about...other things.”

“Are you tired? I’m sure the cherry tree outside misses your illustrious presence.” The doctor’s face alights with a teasing grin.

Ginko smirks back at him and takes a jaunty bite into the other fruit. “No, I’m well-rested actually. What do you normally do around now?”

“Well, lately, I’ve been practicing making mochi--I’ve already started soaking rice for it actually. If you don’t have anything else you’d like to do, I’m sure I could enlist your help. If you have any more of those peaches we could make a syrup to go over them too.”

“Mmmm, that sounds delicious. I have two more--do you think that will be enough, or should I stop eating this one?” Ginko puckishly sinks his teeth into the fruit, drawing out the motion of his lips closing in around a gob of flesh, licking at the released juices, all with his eye fixed on Adashino. He relishes in the flush that heats the doctor’s face.

Adashino rises and twists around with forced aplomb, making to start the culinary process.

“Two should be fine! You can...keep eating…” Adashino indulges in another glance back at the impish mushishi, who is now mouthing at the sticky film on his fingers. An audible gasp escapes the doctor’s lungs, but he plots his revenge, popping his own fruit’s core into his mouth, picking the last edible bits from around it with his teeth. He approaches Ginko, who has now risen to watch his preparations, and slowly removes the pit from his mouth, allowing his lips to drag over it and make a supple popping sound as they close at the end of the now-bare stone. He watches as the black center of Ginko’s eye expands, leaving only a thin ring of that eerie green, before passing by the mushishi on the way to the compost heap outside, allowing a secret satisfied grin to explode over his face. _I’ve still got it._ “But hurry up--you can’t help me if your hands are all sticky!”

\-----------------

The pair set out the various ingredients they have procured: from Ginko, the two additional peaches, wild ginger root, and mizuna, and from Adashino, glutinous rice, kabocha squash, and a masu of decent-but-not-great sake. They resolve to toast the squash seeds and eat them with the mizuna, then fill the mochi with ginger-flavored mashed kabocha, fry the rice balls, and top them with a peach-sake glaze.

Ginko goes to work peeling and chopping the squash while Adashino steams the rice and then starts on the peaches, munching on the peels and around the pits, less flirtatiously than before, though at times he catches Ginko looking at him. As he heats the fruit and splashes some sake in the pan, he turns and dips two choko into the box of rice wine, offering one to Ginko. “This’ll make the prep work a bit less boring.”

The mushishi grins up at him. “Let me first finish peeling this. Wouldn’t want to cut off a finger, eh?”

“Ah, can’t hold our drink, can we?” the doctor teases, raising an eyebrow.

Ginko eyes him in mild affront. It’s partially true--the teenaged mushishi hasn’t had much experience in drinking, and he’s not quite sure how far his tolerance will take him tonight, nor whether he wants to test it. Resolving to pace himself, he stands and reaches for the choko, deliberately brushing Adashino’s fingers with his own in the process, evincing a light blush from the other man.

_“Kanpai!”_

Both men sip from their cups.

“I hope you didn’t offer this just because my company is dull,” the mushishi adds playfully, lightly hip-checking the doctor.

“Of course not! But if you have any good stories, I won’t object to hearing them.” Adashino grins, gently elbowing him back before returning to stir the peach sauce.

Obliging, the mushishi regales him with a story he read in the Karibusa library, of a type of massive snake that eats mountain lords and guards over its new realms with the cruel reign of tooth and claw.

“Have you seen that one with your own eye?”

“No, but I think I may have heard its call once--a resounding bell in the middle of the woods, far from any town. I took it as a sign to keep away, and hastened from that place.”

“Have you seen any mountain lords?”

Ginko dives into more tales about the various shapes mountain lords have taken in his eye, how he once accidentally cracked the egg of a new lord, and his ensuing banishment. He tells of Kaya, the girl born with weeds in her hair, who was torn between her duty to the mountain’s ecosystem and her love for her native town.

Ginko pauses before reaching the end of the story. He’s already treading new territory--never before has he spoken about his shameful lapse with that golden egg, but that had happened when he was younger, immature. He’s not sure how the doctor will react to how he was nearly erased from mortal existence just a year ago, how he would have gone willingly had Kaya not taken her rightful place as a failed lord in the end. He decides to press on to the story’s conclusion, for better or for worse.

When he finishes, Adashino gapes at him, his face pale. “I wouldn’t remember you?”

“Well, I hadn’t met you yet anyway, so you just would never have encountered me. But I suppose even if I had already met you, it would be the same from your perspective.”

Ginko’s clarification does little to reassure his shaken friend.

“Please don’t take risks like that. For me? If not for all the others you’ve helped and kept company. You may not realize it, but I value your presence inestimably. I feel--I feel like I can be myself around you.” He offers a weak smile.

The young mushishi casts his face down. He can barely believe these words. He knows the doctor is attracted to him and enjoys his company, but-- _value him?_ \--surely Adashino-sensei is making a mistake. His life has scarcely more worth than the mushi his cursed presence invites.

 _But maybe…_ A queer warm feeling fills Ginko’s heart.

The physician searches the mushishi’s mien for a response, barely visible as it is beneath the long fringe that drapes down to his lower lip. Giving up, he continues transferring the steamed rice to a mortar.

They work without speaking then, Ginko meditatively ripping up the mizuna and Adashino pounding the rice.

Adashino is glad that he has the rice to take his frustrations out on.

 _He didn’t reply._  
-splat-  
_Was that too much?_  
-splat-  
_Am I too much?_  
-splat-  
_I basically just told him I loved him -taihenda- I hope he doesn’t read into it._  
-splat-  
-splat-  
_You’re the only one I can connect with._  
-splat-  
_I can’t fail like that around you._  
-splat-  
_Please._  
-splat-  
_Please._  
-splat-  
_Please._  
-splat-  
_Don’t hate me._

He spends 10 minutes like this, lost in eddies of thought, before forcing the worries to the back corners of his mind with a series of grunting smacks to the mochi. Finally, he transfers the mochi to a flat surface and goes to rinse and dry his hands. So lost in his worry, he barely notices as the mushishi approaches him from behind. He instinctively goes limp as he feels hands winding around his waist and a warm form molding into his back. _Here it comes. I fucked it up and now he’ll take what he wants from me and leave for good._

But Ginko’s body doesn’t begin rubbing possessively against him. Rather, he nuzzles against Adashino’s neck and speaks softly into his ear.

“Thank you for saying that. I--I’m not sure if you know how much it means to me to feel valued and welcome in this world. I feel lucky to have your friendship.”

Adashino’s mind goes blank. He places his arms over the mushishi’s and they stand there awhile, pressed into one another, content.

Ginko finally breaks the embrace, backing up while sliding his fingers to the lateral edges of Adashino’s hips, the movements of his fingertips somehow more sensual than the full press of his front had been. “I finished prepping the seeds, greens and squash puree and stored the scraps in a jar for broth tomorrow. Do you need any help with the mochi?”

Adashino swivels around and takes Ginko’s hands in his own, looking him in his eye, trying to memorize the moment. _Friendship. Is that what this is?_ “It’s nearly done--I just have to knead it and then we can start dividing the dough and filling the balls. Then it’s just toasting and glazing them”

“Mm, good, I’m getting hungry.”

\--------------------

The mid-grade sake grows more delicious as the sun dips lower in the sky. The two men have had their fill of salad and mochi and resolve to sit on the porch to watch the sunset.

Ginko finds his usual perch, leaning on a banister with one knee up, choko in hand, when a thought occurs to him.

“I never got to hear you playing the shamisen. Why don’t you go get it?”

Adashino perks up from his lounging pose against the side of the house. “I’d love to!” Upon standing, he hesitates for a moment. “Oh, but I’m a little out of practice--you might find my playing disappointing.”

Ginko replies with a conspiratorial grin. “Well, perhaps you could parlay some assistance from a certain tragic lover.”

Adashino’s eyes widen. “Oh! Really? You’d let me do that? I haven’t even touched that one since we first met.”

Ginko smiles and nods, and the doctor speeds off, retrieving the mushi-possessed instrument. When he returns, Ginko finds that the shamisen has grown dull, its golden gleam indiscernible from the gilded light cast upon the town.

“Ah, it’s a shame you haven’t played this one in so long. I think he likes to be touched--he must have grown lonely in that shed of yours.”

“He?”

“Well, you were the one insisting that his soul is not gone from this world.” Ginko sips innocuously from his sake cup. “Why don’t you prove it to me?”

“Hai!” Adashino nods his head vigorously and then goes to work strumming, rousing the enchanted instrument from its months of hibernation. As the doctor begins to channel a hazy, drunk melody, Ginko notices other mushi being attracted to the area. Gulping down the last of his wine, the mushishi fishes for a cigarette to keep the spirits at bay.

He turns toward the doctor, whose eyes are lowered, monitoring the movements of his fingers and plectrum. The man is awash in gold light: the warm bronze of sunset bathes him from above, while the ethereal glow of the instrument illuminates him from below. He looks like a god. Again, Ginko feels inexorably pulled toward the doctor, wants to smell and taste and feel him. But in his current gilt state Adashino-sensei is divine, untouchable. Ginko must drink his fill by just watching, listening, imagining.

They pass some time like this, Adashino folding into the groove of the shamisen, Ginko observing, enthralled.

As the golden light of sunset morphs into a rose tint, the doctor concludes the lush song and looks up at the mushishi, whose flushed gaze darts away and back again.

“That was lovely, thank you.” As the haze of the song dissipates, the mushishi becomes aware of other bodily needs. “I’m going to go relieve myself.” He rises, sensing in a mild headrush the tipsy weight of his limbs. Steeling himself, the mushishi concentrates on his balance, maintaining a loose but not lopsided gait. On the way back, he makes sure to drink a few handfuls of clean water lest the enchanted evening be marred by excessive drunkenness or headache.

When he returns to his spot on the porch, he lets out an abrupt guffaw. Adashino pauses his new song and looks up at him, bewildered. “What?”

“They’re all over you. I can’t even see your face!” Ginko exhales a purposeful curl of smoke to clear away the mushi that obscure his view of Adashino’s charming expression.

“Really?!” Adashino waves his arms around excitedly, trying to feel at the spirits, effectively shooing many of them away, while Ginko continues to guide them off of the doctor.

“Yeah, layers and layers of them. I don’t know if I’ll ever see your beautiful face again,” Ginko dissembles melodramatically, chin in hand. He appreciates Adashino’s flailing too much not to milk the moment.

 _Beautiful?_ Adashino is distracted from trying to sense the mushi that have now, in actuality, deserted his immediate vicinity. Turning and looking Ginko in the eye, he clarifies, “So you can’t see me at all?”

“Nope.”

Adashino’s gaze pierces into the young mushishi. He unabashedly ogles Ginko from head to toe, his eyes half-lidded. He bites his lower lip, languidly dragging his teeth along its expanse before releasing the soft red flesh. Adashino then slides his tongue along the inside of the bitten lip before flicking it up, letting it curve outward, sensually licking his upper lip. Ere his tongue returns to its resting place, the mischievous flesh pokes into the side of the doctor’s mouth, forming a suggestive bulge in his cheek.

Ginko’s face is hot red, and he crosses his legs to obscure another suggestive bulge. He lowers his face to take a deep breath and compose himself. When he lifts his head back up, he forces his face into a mask of mirthful teasing, preserving the deception.

“I could see that you turned to look at me though. Were you making a rude gesture at me? What did your face look like just now?” The mushishi raises his eyebrow.

Adashino merely grins, and diverts his focus back down to his instrument, strumming out a series of saucy chords.

Ginko takes a few puffs on his cigarette in the direction of the sunset, decompressing, before he turns back to the doctor. Adashino’s form is less imposing now in the pink twilight. The young mushishi exhales. _It’s time. Time to tell him._ Try as he may, he cannot ease the rabbit-pace of his heart.

Adashino is so engrossed in the music, he scarcely notices as Ginko meanders closer to him, until he feels the other man’s thigh parked against his own. He halts in his playing and looks expectantly at his friend. Ginko motions toward the instrument.

“Can I try?”

The doctor obliges, handing Ginko the shamisen and bachi, demonstrating the correct hand placements. Ginko closes his eyes and lets an intangible force guide his fingers, diving into a playful counterpoint to the previous song.

Adashino listens to the pleasant, lilting tones, sipping on the sake he hadn’t been able to touch since fetching the shamisen. As the song eases through its final chords, the doctor refills his choko and peers at the other man, his nimble fingers and lithe frame. He tries to make out the mushishi’s concentrated expression beneath his curtain of snowy hair, which is almost silver in the violet light of early evening.

As the tune ends, Ginko places the shamisen to his side. “That’s enough for now. I think I could see the moonbeams getting a little overexcited.”

“Ah, to see the world as you do, I could only wish.”

“Well, the mushi eventually become another mundane phenomenon, something I can study as you study the waves of the sea in that Dutch book.” He gives a soft, reassuring look to the doctor, then turns toward the sunset, exhales deeply, and ashes his cigarette. _Time._

“There is something I have kept from you.”

“Yeah?”

Ginko shifts nervously, his heart rate back up to a rapid clip.

“Well, about the shamisen...In the story, I mentioned that the musician had a lover…”

“Yes?”

“Well, his lover was also a man. And not a kabuki actor or a girlish adolescent, at that, but a full-grown man, a little older than he was, in fact.”

“Oh.” The doctor blanches, but tries to act naturally.

“...And this shamisen is special, but not to everyone who touches it. I said that those who are able to channel the instrument’s soul reawaken the lover’s musical prowess, but...well, only those with a similar nature--in love--to the shamisen-player can convey his spirit.”

A gravid silence hangs between them for a few moments as Adashino takes in the information. When he grasps its full implications, he sinks his head, clenching his fists in his hair, hiding his face behind his forearms. “You knew all this time.”

“I knew all this time.” Ginko wraps a comforting arm around the doctor’s shoulders, massaging gently with his thumb. Trying to lighten the mood, he adds with a chuckle, “Although I probably would have figured it out without the shamisen...you’re not exactly subtle about it.”

Adashino tenses at that. “I swear, I have tried to be attracted to the women my parents bring before me. I don’t hate them! I just...can’t make it happen.”

 _Kuso._ Ginko continues massaging him and wraps another arm around him. “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay.” He feels the doctor hyperventilating and hears how the other man is barely holding onto his words, choking back sobs.

“I’ll never live a normal life -snif-  
or carry on my family’s line, -Huhsnugh-  
or be a-Huhuh- pious me-heh-mber of society.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Breathe. Deep breaths, in and out.” Ginko beckons him to follow his own breathing pattern.

Adashino does as he’s told. _Obedience, the one thing I can do right. And keeping tears at bay. No, don’t even go there. Just breathe._ Slowly he makes his way out of the pit of his mind and his breathing smooths out.

“Can you look up at me?”

The anxious doctor lets out one last sniffle and peels his arms from his face. The evening has darkened through his episode, that rosy violet haze now a deep indigo.

“Let me get some water for you.” The warmth around Adashino departs for a few moments as Ginko fetches a cup from inside. When he returns, lighting a lantern along the way, Adashino gratefully downs the cool liquid.

“Feeling better?”

Adashino nods, whispers “A little,” and slowly raises his head, facing the mushishi, who is smiling gently at him. He feels heartened by his friend’s compassionate mien.

“I’m glad.” Ginko strokes the man’s hair with a steady cadence. “Well, I wasn’t quite expecting that, but I’ll admit I was also nervous telling you the rest of that story. You see, there’s a rather large detail that you seem to be overlooking here.”

Adashino looks blankly at him, his mind exhausted and weak.

“I’ve never touched a shamisen before just now. My playing was good, right?”

“Yes, it was gorgeous. Ho-how did you do it?”

“I channeled the soul of the instrument.”

The puzzle pieces coalesce in Adashino’s post-adrenaline brain. “You?”

“Me.”

Adashino becomes narrowly aware of how close they are in this moment. He can see the pores of Ginko’s skin, the pale curves of his eyelashes, the emerald flecks that catch the lantern’s light in his single iris, his patient lips.

Slowly, he brings a hand to the heat of his friend’s neck and allows his own head to hover closer, first making contact at the forehead, then nuzzling their noses alongside one another, breathing the same air. In his breaths he can taste the smoky bitterness that coats the mushishi, followed by the hormone-heavy musk hidden beneath. The latter impels him to dive further. Raising his thumb to sweep the man’s long hair aside, he brushes warm lips against Ginko’s, testing the waters.

Ginko hums, responding in kind, curving and parting his lips rhythmically against Adashino’s, exploring the manifold nature of this new sensation, all the ways their lips can tuck into each other, entwining and releasing, then advancing again. At some point their tongues join the game, complicating the dance, licking delicately at the other players, but never quite deepening into a full-on snog, never ducking beyond the other’s teeth. Each man periodically opens his eye or eyes, enjoying the sight of the other so engrossed, before closing again to focus on the thrill of their shared tongues and lips.

Adashino takes a moment to spy on Ginko, reveling in the mushishi’s pleasure, when the green eye cracks open to look at him. They keep kissing for a moment before they are overwhelmed by observing the other’s observation. Adashino’s breath bubbles into laughter, his diaphragm still unhinged from the hiccuping panic that overtook him moments ago, and he pulls back, while Ginko just keeps smiling.

“You. And me. Both” Ginko leans into him, still grinning, pulling needy smacks from Adashino as though he cannot breathe for more than a second without the other man’s mouth, the doctor endeavoring to give him what he needs. The mushishi pauses, searching Adashino’s eyes, his easy smile tensing in concentration.

“Is this all right?”

The doctor is incredulous. Ginko has already administered far more care than any of his heretofore lovers, if he can even call them that. The way the mushishi makes his whole body tingle without even removing clothing, without even touching his most sensitive areas, is delicious. It barely registers with him that only minutes ago he was withdrawing into himself, hiccuping out panic-stricken words.

“This is sublime. I wish this moment could last my entire life.”

Ginko’s visage relaxes back into a tipsy, blushing smile. “Well, we at least have the whole night before anything else obliges us to stop.” He rotates so his body faces Adashino’s sitting form, his kneeling limbs wedged in between the other man’s loosely crossed legs. With his left hand he gently caresses the shell of the doctor’s right ear, while his right grasps at the man’s waist. He leans in, beginning the second round with barely-there grazes of lips, both men watching the other, catching the brief featherlight brushes like butterflies, cherishing the slight but charged sensations. Slowly their lips make deeper contact until they are back in the rhythm of the previous kiss, Adashino sliding both arms around the mushishi’s torso, ceasing to mind the strands of white hair that join the dance of their parted mouths. In fact, their uninvited presence activate his wilder instincts. He advances on Ginko, letting his lips press more firmly, pushing his tongue deeper along the root of the other man’s.

The young mushishi utters a groan, reciprocating the added force, his left hand sliding back on the doctor’s head, pawing through his hair, clutching firmly at handfuls of it, tugging. Meanwhile his right skims around to Adashino’s front, up his abdomen. When it reaches the doctor’s chest, he widens his palm, shoving his friend against the outer wall of the house. His legs adjust, now bent straddling around Adashino’s lap.

They grasp desperately at each other’s bodies, their mouths consuming, tongues swimming, teeth clacking, taking from each other. This too becomes a frenzied dance, their hips rocking to the sensual rhythm.

Adashino gasps in pleasure as he feels his arousal grinding against a similar hardness, but a scrap of shame buzzes through his mind, and he wrenches his tongue from Ginko’s mouth. Panting, he mutters, “Inside,” before diving into a series of brief, heady kisses. Just as one of these promises to extend to another whirling snog, he abruptly breaks off again. “Really.” Offering a last peck, he finds his abandoned choko, downing the nearly full cup in one go, and rises to gather some of the things they brought out.

\-----------------------

Ginko picks up the remaining objects and follows the doctor in. They place their things carefully down inside, shuffling off their sandals and shoes, and light a couple lanterns. These chores done, Ginko attempts to close the distance between himself and the unburdened physician, who has darted to a cabinet, his work not yet done.

“Let me grab some things and prepare myself before we start again so that we don’t have to fumble too much in the heat of the moment.” Ginko watches as Adashino extracts a rag, bowl, small jar, and a pouch connected to a thin reed from the cabinet. The doctor pours some water into the bowl and soaks the rag in it, then opens the jar and places both containers next to his futon in the next room. Ginko’s eye widens when he sees the yellowish gel inside. Adashino proceeds to fill the pouch with water and moves in the direction of the squat-toilet outside. The virgin mushishi’s pulse quickens in realization.

“We don’t have to do _…that…_ tonight.”

Adashino stops in his tracks and looks up, surprised at Ginko’s reluctance.

“Oh, uh, well I like the sensation back there--It’s actually sort of mind-blowing when it’s done right.” Adashino turns to the teenage mushishi, offering a bashful smile.

The look of shock Ginko wears stretches further. _He’s done this before? And he likes it...like that?_

The doctor walks over to him and warmly embraces the mushishi. “We don’t have to do it that way if you don’t want.” He puts down the pouch and glances back at the futon before grinning at the startled young man. “But the seaweed gel can make a lot of things more fun.” He burrows into Ginko’s neck, nosing at the man’s shaggy hair, pressing a path of soft kisses from his clavicle to the tender skin behind his ear. “You still want to do some things, don’t you?” he murmurs plaintively into Ginko’s ear, licking at its outward folds and nibbling at the shell.

He is satisfied to feel an immediate response to his ministrations from the mushishi’s groin. Ginko moans and grips the doctor, right hand in his hair, the other low on his waist. As Adashino continues the teasing motions of tongue and teeth along Ginko’s sensitive left ear, the mushishi’s left hand grows more brash as it roams lower along his side, clutching and then squeezing at the doctor’s ass.

The new contact sends a jolt to Adashino’s cock and, relinquishing the mushishi’s ear, he guides Ginko to a nearby wall, pushing him plumb against it, running his hands all over the other man’s body, front and back. Their faces crash together, continuing where the porch’s passionate makeout session had left off. Adashino’s hands sneak under Ginko’s shirt, caressing the supple skin of his belly, the ridges of his ribs. Their mouths break contact for a moment so Ginko can lift the shirt up off his head, and Adashino drinks in the candlelit sight of his bare chest.

“ _Sugoi._ You are so gorgeous.”

The young mushishi milks the doctor’s appreciation, stretching into a dramatic contrapposto against the wall, forearms resting atop his head, flexing his abdominal muscles, eye half-lidded and inviting. “Oh yeah?”

In response the doctor crouches down, teasing lips at the sparse white hair below Ginko’s naval, momentarily taking in the distinctive masculine scent below--and the ragged moan from above--before dragging his tongue up the man’s torso, greedy hands following in its wake. He stops at the crest of his sternum and shifts laterally along the mushishi’s chest, licking, kissing, sucking over it, his left hand caressing the other breast and his right grasping at the hip. Adashino teases Ginko’s nipple with tongue and teeth and is rewarded with an abrupt gasp. He continues in this manner as the other man’s hands roam over him, grappling through his hair and along his back. Finally he raises his head and leans back slightly, admiring how the lantern light reflects off of the more well-attended patches of skin along the mushishi’s figure.

Smiling at his handiwork, he returns his lips to the warm and wet of Ginko’s mouth. They carry on, hands groping, hips grinding, pausing only as Ginko begins to work at the knot of Adashino’s obi. The mushishi unwinds the the strip of fabric and, casting it aside, glides his hands along the doctor’s shoulders, gently opening the man’s yukata. As Ginko gazes at the newly exposed skin, Adashino shrugs off the remaining fabric, peering at the mushishi with a demure smolder as he slips his fundoshi to the ground.

The multitalented doctor is slimmer, less built than the traveling mushishi, but in no time the latter is all over him, fingers delicately padding at the dips of skin that drape over his ribcage, hands squeezing at the crest of his hips, thumbs grazing the sensitive nubs of Adashino’s chest, exploring, though tactfully avoiding the eager flesh that bobs in arousal at his touch.

Adashino brings a hand to the mushishi’s chin, drawing his stare up to his face, and they resume kissing, pressed together. Ginko slots a hand between them, unbuttoning his pants and pushing them down along with his own underwear. Adashino gives him space to kick them off, then thrusts closer again, feeling for the first time the heat of their centers pressed together, skin to skin. He guides the mushishi back to the futon and drops down to his behind, knees flaring, beckoning Ginko to follow.

The young mushishi understands his friend’s intent and looms over him on his knees. He skims delicate fingers along the other man’s inner thighs and up his sides, then back down again, furtively eyeing the stirrings of the organ in between, how it twitches in response to each caress.

“You can touch it.” Adashino clarifies, flushed with anticipation. Ginko looks up from the other man’s trunk to the wrecked, impatient expression on his face, and his curiosity turns to impishness. He ducks his head down, keeping his eye locked with the doctor’s, dragging his tongue along the other man’s open thighs, kissing all around the throbbing heat but not quite touching it beyond the light tickle of his hair brushing over it.

“Fuck. -ah- Please?” Adashino lowers his trunk to the futon, raising his arms over his head and closing his eyes in zealous expectation.

Ginko is unsure about taking the other man fully in his mouth and satiates his curiosity by licking up the shaft--eliciting a hiss from the other man--and kissing the head, before bringing his mouth up to more familiar territory and maneuvering his own erection level with Adashino’s, continuing the grind from before.

Adashino sighs into Ginko’s mouth and dips his fingers into the jar next to him, warming the dollop of carrageenan between his palms and then breaking off the kiss. “May I?” The mushishi nods assent and gasps in pleasure as the doctor grasps both of them in his hands, stroking and spreading the slick gel.

Ginko buries his head into his friend’s neck, sucking and biting kisses that match the intensity of the sensation he feels below. Soon he finds himself thrusting into Adashino’s hands, and his breathing grows more ragged. The doctor senses the change and lets go of Ginko’s cock, coating his own thighs in the seaweed lube and the men’s combined precum. He pants out the words, “Put it...in between,” motioning to his parted legs.

Ginko does as bidden and hisses when he feels the heat between Adashino’s thighs. The latter gropes at the young mushishi’s muscled chest and shoulders while continuing to stroke his own shaft, feeling close to the edge himself. Ginko hastens the pace of his thrusts, heaving and glistening with sweat, feeling the headrush of inevitability as the pressure mounts.

“I’m gonna-Ahh”

Ginko’s cock is a burning brand between Adashino’s thighs and before the former can finish his sentence, he finishes, raising his hips and milking himself, spurting hot ropes over the doctor’s hand, still-active erection, and abdomen. Adashino looks hungrily at the man coming to pieces above him. As the aftershocks pass, the undone mushishi collapses in a heap on top of the doctor and noses dreamily at the crook of his neck.

Still at work, Adashino gathers Ginko’s release and spreads it around the other man’s abdomen before freeing his right hand and grappling the mushishi’s back with both hands, utilizing the extra friction and heat of his closeness, thrusting up along his torso. Ginko surrounds him completely and the doctor soon loses his composure, erupting euphorically below him.

Both men lie ravaged and slack for a time, panting in the afterglow, unsure where one ends and the other begins, trading sloppy kisses. After a time Ginko rolls off of Adashino and the latter sits up, reaching for the washcloth and wiping away the sweat, lube, and cum. Done with himself, he rinses the rag in the bowl, squeezes it out, and hands it to Ginko.

“I’m glad you prepared,” the mushishi says, smiling as he cleans himself. He leans over to peck Adashino on the cheek. “ _Dashi-chan._ ”

Adashino sniffs a laugh. “A nickname already? Why dashi?”

“Well it appears in the syllables of your name, and it was the first thing you fed me, and-” the mushishi smiles mischievously, dipping a finger into the warm, sticky release that still dribbles down his belly. “You make such exquisite sauce for me.” He lifts the finger to his mouth, savoring the mild-but-funky salt taste as he wipes the rest away and places the rag back in the bowl.

Adashino’s face scrunches up in a giggling fit. “Okay, I’ll take it.”

“Actually, it tastes...interesting. I kind of like it?”

“That’s probably because we were eating peaches earlier--fruit makes it taste good.”

Now it’s Ginko’s turn to giggle uncontrollably. “So...have you done experiments to this end?”

Adashino huffs, putting on a straight face. “Yes. I’m a scientist.”

Ginko wraps his arms around Adashino, laughing mirthfully. The doctor can’t help but join in, clinging to the spent mushishi. Eventually, their convulsions calm to a soft titter and Ginko summons the energy to rise and douse the lanterns.

In the fresh darkness he wears a secret smile, returning to the warm arms of his lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I aim for realism in my sex scenes, and you know what that means! Ladies, it is time to talk about rectal douching because momma there will be no scat play in this fic.
> 
> Anyways, I feel like this chapter has tons of vague YOI influences, like Adashino having anxiety and Ginko being a little vain. Also, also, headcanon: after Dashi-chan makes eyes at Ginko, bitch you know what chords the shamisen is playing.
> 
> Also, vague CMBYN reference with peach seduction idk idk what is going through my head


	4. Could I try?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Were you looking for angst, comfort, and sex with a dollop of angst at the end? Then, my friend, this is the chapter for you!
> 
> I don't think I've read this all the way through sober yet, soooo... *crosses my fingers that I didn't absentmindedly use any colloquialisms referring to plural eyes to describe Ginko*
> 
> CW: explicit sex

Ginko lies awake for some time in Adashino’s arms, pondering. When he closes his eye, his other senses tingle with giddiness and his mind spins with the lingering wine. He feels full of new vitality, hyper aware of every tactile sensation as if his skin is a fresh robe, casting him now in the role of lover. At the same time, his body is, at core, familiar, as though this whole experience were hiding within him all along. Still, despite the electric tingling of his nerves, the torpor following orgasm nudges him toward oblivion, and he drifts to sleep, his body savoring the simultaneous warmth of his friend’s touch and mild coolness of the summer night wafting through the window.

\---------------------------

When he wakes, he feels bereft. Gathering where he is and what he had been doing prior to sleep, he recognizes the cause--Adashino rolled over at some point in the night, leaving him with only the blanket for warmth.

Ginko opens his eye to the profound blackness of the small hours. He rolls over, molding his body around the doctor’s as the latter had done when Ginko slipped off. The other man shifts and makes a gruff sound of annoyance before turning around to face the mushishi, muttering incomprehensible syllables while picking the sand from his eyes.

“Pardon?”

Adashino’s brain stirs into awareness. “I said, do you usually wake up at such an early hour?”

Ginko smiles softly and strokes his friend’s hair. “Most nights, although I’m not sure if it’s officially ‘early’ yet. I often spend this time between sleeps staring up in the woods, watching the nighttime mushi or, when I’m close to a Light Vein, closing my second eyelid and smoking next to the kouki river, letting the peace well up in me.”

Adashino softens at his lover’s words, imagining the man in his element, and leans forward to press a series of soft, lazy kisses to his lips. Ginko catches and returns them, reveling in the comfort and warmth of their new intimacy. He pauses to add, “I think it’s pretty normal to wake up around now for a bit though--you probably don’t because you keep odd hours with your books in candlelight rather than doing as your body bids.”

The doctor screws up his face at the slight. “Well sorry I don’t get to witness such magical experiences on a regular basis.”

The mushishi climbs closer, placing a consoling hand on his friend’s shoulder, and whispers in his ear. “Well, it’s not always so magical. Sometimes I just jerk off and go back to sleep.” He retreats smirking, squeezing Adashino’s shoulder, a roguish spark glinting in his eye as he pecks his lover’s cheek, and then pulls a slightly more passionate kiss from his mouth.

Adashino hums into the osculation but soon breaks off, bidding Ginko to light a lantern. “I want to see you, koibito.”

The mushishi smiles and rises, searching for a match. “Sorry, sometimes I forget other people can’t see in the dark.”

“You can what?”

Ginko smiles as he finds a match and lights the lantern. “I can see in the dark. I suppose it is a pleasant side effect of the Tokoyami living in my eye socket.” The doctor blinks and squints in the sudden change in light, but eagerly watches the mushishi’s naked form bathed in the yellow glow.

“You are a surprise at every turn, Ginko-kun,” Adashino is rapt, sitting up and gazing sidelong at his friend, cheek in hand. The object of his attention looms closer and leans forward, kissing him firmly, but gently.

“Better?”

“So much better.” Adashino hesitates, but continues, unfurling a corner of his heart. “You-you’re better than anything I’ve had so far. You... give as much as you take. It seems like you take care not to hurt me.”

Ginko senses the shift in mood and sinks down next to the other man on the futon, kissing him lightly and letting a hand skim up and down his silhouette.

“I’m surprised to hear you say I’m better than your other lovers.” Ginko similarly hesitates, not wanting to unmask himself, but feeling compelled to be honest with Adashino, notwithstanding the consequences . “This was my first time. I hope I didn’t fumble around too much…”

Adashino chuckles and fondles a lock of Ginko’s long hair. “I gathered as much from your reticence at certain points of the act. But I think being a good lover is more than just having enough experience to know which buttons to press.”

Ginko quirks his mouth. _So he could tell._ “Yeah, well, I’m only about 19 years old, and since I live a life of wandering, women are out of the question, and--”

“Oh, so you do have the capability to...”

“Yes. But that does not lessen my attraction to men, or moreover my attraction to you.” Ginko increases the firmness of his caresses with these words. “You are irresistible.” He pauses, correcting the thrust of his statement. “In body and mind.”

Adashino smiles warmly back. “Thank you.”

“Now as for these other lovers--they won’t come after me, will they? Once a mushishi took me in with some other apprentices, but his favorite took a liking to me. He caught us in a fumbling embrace and kicked me out--in the middle of the mountains, on a winter night. I barely survived, but he said I was getting off easy.”

Adashino’s visage shifts from sardonic amusement to concern and back again. “You definitely don’t have to worry--it would be a stretch to call them lovers--’clients’ might be more accurate. Some of them are better than others, but for the most part those encounters are...transactional.”

“Ooo, so you...?” Ginko widens his eye in surprise.

The doctor sighs and continues, his countenance solemn, jaded. “This town is far from the floating world, Ginko-chan. Merchants who come here with books and exotic, strange objects...well, they’re more susceptible to the lure of physical release. And sometimes what they do feels good for me, too, although I can’t show it to them. But the intellectual pleasure I get from the books--it makes all the trade worth it, good and bad.”

Ginko is aghast at this revelation, but suspends judgment. _I thought that I knew Adashino-sensei..._ “But you didn’t offer that service to me. Were my objects not interesting enough? Or is this…?”

Adashino shakes his head, conflicted. “I don’t offer. The merchants and mushishi I have dealt with before you...when it happens, it’s because they ask. My reputation is spread by word of mouth among them, I think.” The doctor casts his head down before continuing. “I suppose that my… _comprehensive_ experience in this area may sully my character in your eye, but it hurts that you think this may have been some sort of barter.” He looks back toward Ginko, searching his face for disapproval.

Ginko leans in, pressing a delicate kiss to the doctor’s lips.

“I’m sorry. And no, of course not--this was special--for both of us, if I’m to believe your account. I don’t regard you poorly either--I understand your reasons for doing what you do well enough, and it doesn’t change the nature of the interactions we’ve shared.”

Adashino beams at the young mushishi and draws him closer, feeling a weight lifting from him. They share a handful of soft kisses before Ginko pauses, curiosity bubbling in him.

“Have you felt this way--the way you feel for me--for anyone before?”

The doctor sighs before answering, diving into a long-buried memory. “Some of the passersby are more handsome than others, and some are more caring than others, but with them I never had the friendship I’ve shared with you. I’ve had infatuations, though. Once, when I was beginning the changes, I developed feelings for another boy...

“I was two years into my medical apprenticeship. My master’s family was originally from the Satsuma province, but some of his relatives came into dishonor, and he and his parents were forced to flee. As a result, he cared a great deal for maintaining high social status. His wife died miscarrying, and, having grown old and childless, he sought an apprentice. My parents considered it a blessing that he agreed to take me under his wing, since my mother had given up her rank by marrying a foreigner. I was just happy to continue my education.

“There is a night soil processor a bit further inland from here, and collectors come weekly to the toilets of high-ranking members of these towns. A boy about my age would gather the ‘noble compost’ from my master’s toilet. I think this was his first stop of the day, because he didn’t smell too bad yet. We would chat, and I relished our interactions. I waited for his arrival each week.

“My master began to take notice of my covert blushes and wandering eyes. One day, after observing my weekly encounter with the boy, he lectured me harshly about how I was not to touch anyone in that unclean class, how that boy was no better than the shit he collected. My master mused that perhaps he had made a mistake with me, unrefined son of a foreigner that I am.” The doctor hangs his head for a moment and takes a breath, exhaling as he relevels his gaze.

“That night, my master...he took me. Hard.” Adashino gulps these last few words, the lingering anger and pain sharpening an edge to them. “Said it was to ‘cultivate virtue’…”

Ginko lightly massages his friend’s shoulder, trying to comfort him. “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

“Most times it wasn’t as bad as that, and he did teach me a great deal. But I will admit, when he died I felt some relief.”

“Mm, even if he was mostly gentle, I don’t feel that it’s good for adults to sexually pursue youths--because of the power imbalance the latter are more likely to submit despite not wanting to...it seems like one who goes through this process would come to view their body and agency as mere objects, playthings, or commodities for others’ pleasure. I’ve even noticed a tendency for people who’ve been taken in this way to be more susceptible to mushi influence later on in life.”

Ginko notices the way Adashino’s lip quirks at his analysis and hastily amends himself: “Sorry, sorry, not to say that’s what happened in your case--”

Adashino interrupts him. “That is what happened in my case. It’s okay.”

“But it’s not. What you went through isn’t okay.”

Adashino reaches over and strokes the mushishi’s hair. “Well my master is in the ground now, so there’s not much I can do about it. I am who I am, partially because of how he molded me.”

“Still, I’m surprised that you like that sensation even after what happened to you.”

“Mm. Yes, soon after my master’s demise a lascivious merchant came through town. I was sixteen years old--still a beautiful wakashu--and he had some interesting foreign texts with him. He propositioned me to seal the deal and I just...went with it. It felt like I was freeing myself from my master’s influence, to degrade myself before a member of the lowest class like that. After him, others came. Some dealt me a modicum of care and came by regularly, but that sort of business has slowed to a trickle as I’ve grown. At twenty-two years it seems I can only offer a warm hole, not the breathtaking beauty of youth.”

Ginko nuzzles under the other man’s chin, pressing a kiss to his throat. “Oh, I don’t know about that--your beauty takes my breath away. But I don’t really understand why people desire adolescents anyway.”

“Me neither. I prefer some level of maturity in a lover. But anyway, I suppose my continuing enjoyment of that sensation serves as a testament to its intensity. Like I said before, when it’s good, it’s mind-blowing.”

The mushishi ponders this, measuring his hesitation with his curiosity. Coming to a conclusion, he pulls back, looking his friend in the eye.

“Could I try? I mean, will you do it to me?”

A brief flash of surprise crosses Adashino’s face, followed by a warm smile. He leans forward, initiating a couple playful tongue-kisses. “Sure.”

In response, Ginko increases the depth and fervor of his caresses, and redoubles the effort of his mouth.

At the conclusion of the heady kiss, Adashino gasps, “Oh, did you mean now?”

Ginko smiles and nods. “If you’re up for it.”

\-----------------------------------

A fully clothed Adashino leads the mushishi outside with the bowl, rag, and pouch from before. Ginko follows tentatively, the cool night air raising goose pimples on his exposed shoulders--he had pulled on his slacks before venturing outside to protect his modesty, but realizes too late that it would have been prudent to also put his shirt back on for the errand.

The doctor turns to Ginko and commences his lesson. “You’re sure your bowels don’t feel at all full? If so, we should wait--it’s best to wait at least an hour or two after emptying yourself.”

Ginko shakes his head and shivers, unsure if his body is reacting to the chill or the trepidation. Adashino notices the young mushishi’s quivering and puts the objects in his hands down, drawing his lover into a warm embrace.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You’re shaking like a leaf. I won’t be disappointed if you back out.”

Ginko squeezes the doctor and pulls away, determined. “Yes, I want to.”

“Very well.” Adashino picks up the pouch, motioning toward the thin reed protruding from it. “Insert this into yourself and squeeze the bag. Do this a few times, refilling the skin each time, until the water is clean when it leaves you.” He hands the instrument to the mushishi and picks up the bowl and washcloth. “Then wipe the area clean with the rag. When you’re done you can dump the water and squeeze out the rag. I’ll clean them tomorrow.” He gives the bowl to Ginko and kisses him lightly on the cheek. “In the meantime I’ll prepare a cloth and fresh water for afterward. I’ll meet you inside.”

Ginko leans in to steal a last kiss from the doctor and then makes his way for the squat toilet.

The water feels strange inside him, and he tenses as it fills him with a slight chill. After the first round he feels a little more ready, less surprised when the liquid squirts up into him. He steels himself, admonishing any hesitation. _This will be nothing compared to…_  
His muscles clench.

\-----------------------

Time marches the mushishi through the cleansing stage and back inside, closer yet to the act.

Adashino has lit the cooking coals and is heating some water. He inspects the bubbles in the pot, and when he determines that the water is at the correct temperature, he removes the pot and pours it into a cup.

Ginko puts down the cleaning supplies and approaches his friend from behind, wrapping his arms around the man's slender waist. “Are you making tea for me, Dashi-chan?” he murmurs into Adashino’s neck.

“Yes. The herbs I put in it will help your body relax.” He reaches his hands back to feel at the mushishi’s taut muscles. “Mm, yeah, you’re pretty tight right now--I can even tell from this angle. Here, let’s switch places.”

Ginko complies and groans as the doctor thumbs into the knots of his back, digging at his pressure points. Adashino’s hands travel from the nervous mushishi’s neck, around his shoulder blades, and down along his spine. As he begins to massage Ginko’s well-developed gluteal muscles through his pants, he resumes speech.

“I can tell you’re apprehensive about this--perhaps if not in mind, then in body--but if you want to enjoy it, you’ll have to relax yourself. There’s only so much that the tea and my hands can do. Beyond that, it’s about you being open. Okay?”

“Mmmmmm.” Ginko continues to moan as Adashino breaks up the gnarls under the his skin.

As the doctor feels his friend loosening under his fingers, the focused digging of his fingers makes way for gentle fondling.

“Ahhh, Ginko-kun, you have such a nice ass.” Adashino’s hands cup at the mushishi’s ample backside and grope down his firm thighs. He sinks his face into the shoulder-length mop of white hair before him and inhales deeply, perceiving the still-present pheromone-heavy sweat from their play at nightfall. As his hands shift back up Ginko’s haunches, he noses through the man’s locks and plants a kiss to the back of his neck.

Ginko smiles, blissed out from the massage, and reaches his arms around to clutch at the other man’s hips, leaning his back into the doctor’s chest. Adashino raises one hand to guide his lover’s hair away from the right shoulder and begins lipping, sucking at the exposed expanse of skin, while his right hand roams up and down Ginko’s abdomen. He licks up behind the man’s right ear, biting at the shell, exhaling heat into the sensitive area. Ginko moans and arches his back into Adashino. Both realize at this moment that the doctor is already profoundly hard, and Adashino backs away.

They look at each other, flushed, hearts racing, _wanting._

The doctor pipes up, retrieving the cup and handing it to Ginko. “Well, at this rate, you may not need the tea, but it should be about done brewing.”

The mushishi takes a sip and smiles. “Oh, it’s sweet.”

“I put in a little sugar to make up for the bitterness of the active ingredients.”

“Oh.” Ginko quirks his mouth and frowns. “I try not to use sugar too much--you know what Zusho Shozaemon is doing to the people of the Ryukyu islands? Peasants have been forced to drain their rice paddies--they’re completely dependent on the mainland for food to survive, and with inflated prices at that. Despicable…”

The doctor is flustered, blood struggling its way back up to his head. “Ah, I’m sorry. You’re right--and yes, I know about all that. It’s just habit for me to sweeten bitter medicine--otherwise people will skip doses.”

“Mm, yeah. Mushi purges are pretty bitter. I just tell people to suck it up.” Ginko shoots Adashino a sardonic look, taking another sip. “But perhaps I could stand to have a better bedside manner.”

“Well you make a good point about sugar. Perhaps I should only make savory mochi from here on… The kids might complain, though.”

Ginko chuffs in amusement. “Oh, yeah, I ran into three of them at the pond I bathed in this afternoon. One of them was dispirited that my presence would mean less mochi for them.” He smirks into his tea, remembering the little girl’s parting words to him in his flight.

“Ooohh, they didn’t say anything weird to you, did they? About me?”

Ginko downs the rest of the liquid and closes the distance between them, pressing lips to his friend’s cheek. “Nothing I didn’t already know,” he replies simply.

“Agghh those brats!” Adashino bows his head, sighing dejectedly.

Ginko smiles, gripping him on both sides and recounting, “One of them was even under the impression that we were getting married. She wanted to make sure we had plenty of mochi for the occasion.” Rapid, irregular exhales wrack the doctor, and Ginko is momentarily unsure whether his friend is laughing or crying. Thankfully, the latter raises his head, mirth in his expression.

“I suppose she’ll be particularly disappointed if I stop using sugar in my mochi, then.”

“Well, I suppose it’s okay every now and then, for special celebrations. Just like the shamisen.” Ginko leans in for a brief, but full kiss, and the doctor reciprocates in kind. Pulling away for a moment, the mushishi teases, “Am I all ready now, or do I need to offer a prayer to Tenjin, that our coupling goes without hitch?”

Adashino huffs a laugh at that. “Well, if you want to, sure. Otherwise, we can make our way to bed.” Both men smile into a lingering, delicious kiss.

“Mm, let’s get to it, then.”

\----------------------------

The pair stumble to Adashino’s room, pausing sporadically in the intermediate distance to grapple at each other and make out. As they pass the threshold, they again lose ground, Ginko having pushed the other man against a wall, plunging his tongue deep into his lover’s mouth. The men grope frenziedly, not just tasting, but consuming each other. Both are desperately hard, grinding, as their hands squeeze and scratch.

Ginko has one hand tugging in Adashino’s hair, the other pulling at the loose knot of the doctor’s obi. When the mushishi succeeds in removing the strip of fabric, Adashino extracts himself from the other man’s mouth and gruffly demands, “Take off your pants.”

Ginko is more than happy to acquiesce, unbuttoning his fly and swiftly lifting his legs out of the fabric. Meanwhile Adashino brusquely disrobes, casting his yukata across the room. Neither had put their underwear back on after getting up, so as they crash together yet again, they experience the full heat and friction of skin-to-skin contact. Their naked grind is overwhelming, but fleeting, as Adashino breaks off again.

The doctor pants out, “It would be too easy for me to get off just like this, Ginko-chan. Let me do something for you.” Grinning, the doctor switches their positions, pinning the eager mushishi to the wall. Eyes half-lidded, he gives his lover a prurient once-over and noses his lips, sinking down, trailing plush kisses along Ginko’s neck,  
_...clavicle,_  
_...pectorals,_  
_...abdominals,_  
_...iliac crest,_  
all the while stroking teasing fingers along his inner thighs.

Adashino breathes in the intense masculine scent and looks up sidelong, his head resting along Ginko’s hip, his eyes flaring with suggestion. It takes Ginko a moment to realize that his lover is waiting for his permission, and without further hesitation he nods vigorously. Adashino’s smile widens, and he goes to work, pressing a finger to the base of Ginko’s cock, nosing at the pubic hair just above, tantalizing the other man with the brief contact of fluttering kisses along the shaft.

Slowly he intensifies the kisses to broad licks, dragging his tongue sideways--mouthing at sections as he goes--and then lengthwise, as Ginko’s ragged breath alternates between hisses and whimpers. Grabbing the base of the shaft completely with a hand, Adashino tongues his way upward, teasing at the frenulum before taking the whole head in his mouth, continuing to lick at the sensitive underside of the corona, eliciting a desperate gasp from above. Gazing up at his lover, he sinks further down.

Ginko is overtaken by carnal instinct as he watches Adashino take him in and weaves both hands into his friend’s hair, gently egging him on. Adashino takes the hint and increases the pace, bobbing his head along Ginko’s length, while his hands explore other sensitive places--his left hand fondles the man’s sack, while the fingers of his right glide firmly along his inner thighs toward center, probing at and then gently massaging the perineum.

“Mm, oh--ah, yes! Ooooohhhh.” Ginko pants and grunts word fragments, yoked utterly to the other man’s ministrations, back arching, eye lolling upward. The multitude of sensation floods his brain, swiftly overwhelming him.

“Ahhhhhh Dashi-chan, ahhh you better stop I’m getting close now--”

Adashino withdraws at that, wiping the precum and saliva from his mouth. He takes a break, licking along his lover’s inner thighs, then nosing, mouthing at the balls, juggling them lightly with his tongue while massaging the man’s hip adductors. Ginko’s breathing slows to an irregular pant.

The doctor pauses a moment, leaning back, and motions for Ginko to twist around on the wall, raising his friend’s left leg up over his head.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes...you can do anything.” Ginko curves his spine and angles his legs to give his lover better access.

Adashino plants his face into the well muscled flesh of the mushishi’s rear. He drags his tongue in circles around his opening, all the while kneading two fingers along the perineum. His licks spiral inward until they dance along the rim itself. He kisses the taut flesh, his tongue teasing at the entrance. Ginko moans in rhythm with the steady pulse of the massage.

“Oh-ah. _Kuso,_ that’s good.” Ginko feels heat pooling deep in his core. The soft, hot muscle is much better than the thin reed and cold water from before, and he relaxes into his lover’s mouth, allowing him entrance. Adashino licks up into him while continuing to mouth at the threshold and rub the sensitive strip of skin ahead. The mushishi giggles in pleasure, reaching a hand back to ruffle the doctor’s hair.

“Sugoi! I can’t… believe... you’re doing this for me, Dashi-chan…,” he manages between gasps.

Adashino retracts his tongue to speak. “Well, since you just cleaned yourself, why not?” He kisses the opening a last time before asking, “Are you ready?”

“Mm.”

“Okay, let’s get to the futon then.”

Ginko chuffs, “What a trek it is from the main room to your futon. The distance seems to expand the closer we get.”

Adashino rises, grinning at his friend and grabbing him by the hand. “Ah, perhaps there’s some tricky mushi messing with our perception.”

Ginko smiles back. “Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.” He takes the lead, striding to the futon and lying down on it, legs splayed. Adashino follows apace and looms over him, dipping his head to the other man’s chest to lick and swirl his tongue along the ridges and dips of muscle. He rises again and fumbles his hand on the floor for the jar of seaweed gel. Finding his mark, he opens the container and extracts a healthy dollop, palming it warm between his hands.

Kneeling between his friend’s open legs, Adashino takes himself in his left hand while his right meanders further down to the forward cleft of Ginko’s ass. As his hand finds the ring of muscle, the doctor shoots his lover a questioning look. “May I?”

Ginko nods hungrily, his left hand descending to gently work at himself. He exhales as he feels a slick finger penetrating him, moving in small circles, boring slowly in. As the finger makes it two joints in, Adashino curls the probing digit slightly forward and Ginko gasps, clenching around him.

“Is that okay?”

“Yesssss… Ahh, could you do that again?” Ginko is wrecked before him, eager and open.

“Okay, but if you relax for a sec I can do it again with two fingers.” Adashino grins, watching the young mushishi unravel before him.

“Please~” Ginko relaxes and feels the one finger withdrawing and then two making their way into him, twisting and stretching as they go. Eventually they make their way up to the sensitive place, and press into their mark.

“AhhhhHHHHhhhoooohhHHH. Mmm, yes...kuso kuso kuso…”

Adashino redoubles his efforts on his own cock, inflamed by the moaning man below him, how his friend is totally in his thrall. When he is sufficiently hard, he drops his left arm down to support himself as he leans forward over Ginko. He thrusts experimentally along the other erection, all while keeping up the rhythm of his fingers below.

“Ahh, Dashi-chan, I want to feel you… I want you inside… I want you…”

Ginko’s eye flutters open and closed as the fingers vacate him and a new, wider pressure nudges in. His first instinct is to tense around it, but he remembers the doctor’s words. _Relax._ With every exhale he calms his pelvic floor muscles, ceding ground to that rigid heat, and with every inhale he clamps in along his lover, savoring the burn of being stretched open. After a few rounds of this, Adashino grazes against the sensitive place, sending waves of pleasure through the mushishi’s core.

Ginko moans and whimpers at the new sensation, rocking his hips into it. “Hooooo, keep going--ahhHHOoooOOhh...” he gasps, simultaneously wanting more and barely holding on.

Adashino raises and opens his lover’s thighs for better access and presses further in. Soon enough, Ginko feels their hips plumb together, and knowing that Adashino is fully inside him, he lets go, gives into the headrush, raking hands through his own hair. The doctor begins to lunge in and out, setting an easy, yet thrilling, pace, matching the canting of his lover’s hips.

Ginko reaches one hand back to his cock but Adashino shoos it away. “You’ll come too fast doing that. Let yourself experience just this feeling right now.”

“Haaai…” Ginko draws his hand back up and feels other parts of himself, succumbing to the rise and fall of the stimulation--how the steady pace fades to a lull, then, with naught but a mere rotation of his hip, it overwhelms him again. He hasn’t ever felt this way before--energy suffusing his entire body, throbbing up and down his spine.

Adashino, for his part, begins to grow weary and focuses at last on himself, rocks his hips to his own rhythm. “Is this okay?” He shoots a flushed but gentle gaze at his friend.

“Yes, yes, keep going, koibito,” Ginko manages breathily. He returns the the gaze with a sensual look of simultaneous thirst and satiation.

Adashino picks up the pace at that, beginning to feel heat pooling at his base. When he feels climax approaching, he grabs at his lover’s cock and milks it firmly. As predicted, Ginko doesn’t last long after this: the dual sensations send a tidal wave through his body--he is powerless to the undertow and keels into orgasm, ecstatic spurts shooting out through Adashino’s fingers and up to his torso. Within, the mushishi spasms euphorically, _clenches_ around his lover. At this, Adashino soon follows into climax, yoked utterly to the heat that tightly surrounds him.

Ginko has only a moment to bask in the aftershocks, his nerves tingling, before his friend collapses on top of him, heaving and slipping out of him with the sudden change of position. The doctor gently licks and nibbles at Ginko’s collarbone as both men regain their strength, at which point, the wrecked mushishi draws his lover up for a handful of gentle, salten kisses.

Vitality slowly seeps back into Adashino, and he eventually rises to retrieve the cleaning materials. When he returns, sponging at the rapidly cooling jizz on his abdomen, he finds Ginko sitting up to greet him, still pink in the face.

“Dashi-chan--  
Sugoi…  
That… was amazing. Thank you.”

Adashino grins widely. “I’m glad you liked it. So did I, incidentally.” He sits next to the deflowered mushishi and plants a kiss on his cheek. Cracking a wise smirk, he adds, “I hope you learned a thing or two.”

Ginko angles his head and kisses Adashino full on the mouth. Pulling back, he muses, “Well, I certainly learned that you are an extraordinary lover. I hope I have the chance to repay your kindness.”

The doctor playfully knocks a knee against his friend’s. “Well, it helps that I like you.” He punctuates that with a kiss before continuing. “And I’m sure you will, Ginko-chan.”

The pair make out for some time after that before succumbing to the soporific afterglow of their play, hastily finishing clean-up before dousing the light and cuddling. This time, Ginko plays big spoon, clutching warmly, pressed against his lover’s back.

\---------------------------------------

Before Ginko can drift off, Adashino hums uneasily, contemplating. At length, he murmurs quietly, “I love this. I love being held like this. But I won’t be able to fall asleep like this. I don’t want you to take it the wrong way--it’s just how I’m used to sleeping.”

“Really?”

“Really. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Ginko can’t deny that he is disappointed, but, pressing a last kiss to Adashino’s neck, withdraws his hands, contenting himself with the simple proximity of their bodies.

“Thanks, Ginko-chan.” Adashino curls into himself and his breathing calms.

As blissful as Ginko is in the afterglow, he feels strange at this slight physical rejection. Sure, he’s slept alone all his life until tonight, but under harsher conditions than a lover’s embrace. _He wouldn’t do well in the wild._

_He won’t want to travel with me, in the future…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ginko's sure sippin the tea on exploitative plantation farming. Wait til he figures out where his clothes come from...
> 
> Like legit, I'm gonna write about it in ~50 chapters. Wait for it!


	5. I don't mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... I may have been lying when I used the tag /lowkey/ hair fetish...
> 
> This chapter is about boundaries. It's mostly fluff & smut and the boys being horny college kids who are in love for the first time and can't keep their hands off each other but are constantly negotiating their relationship amidst different social contexts...
> 
> ...these friggin dorks
> 
> CW: explicit sex

Fffftt...ksshhhtffkt...

...

Ssffft...ts-ts-ts-ts-tsffftk...

…

tss-tsk...

Ginko closes his eye, lulled by the soft and sharp hiss of comb and scissor behind him, the drag of Adashino’s fingers along his scalp and the tickle of fallen strands and sea breeze on his naked torso, the subtle perception of his head becoming lighter. “Mmmm…” He savors the moment, but falls soon into reflection, pondering the events of the past day, his shifting relationship with the other man.

\------------------------

He had been awoken that morning in equal parts by the brightness of the sun through the window and a sour feeling in his gut. He scrambled to throw on pants before rushing outside to the toilet, relief coursing through him as he emptied himself of-- _Oh, right. That too._

The clarity of bodily need made him nearly forget what had happened the previous night, and as the physical waste rushed out of him, all the experiences and emotions flooded back into his mind. The pleasant memories offset the sting and soreness that became more apparent the longer he squatted--a wince of pain as the healing micro-ruptures stretched gave way to a low chuckle. “Adashino-sensei, what did you do to me?” he mumbled under his breath.

_He really did everything he could to make it good for me, though. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him, with that master of his._

As he stood up and exited the stall, he meditated on the gulf existing between him and Adashino--how much he still didn’t know about the other man despite their heretofore intimacy. He wondered what portions of his perception of the doctor were filled in by his own ideas about how Adashino _should_ be rather than the reality of the other man’s true self.

Despite this uneasy rumination, he felt...happy. The distance that remained between them, his concerns about the future were but small snags in his overwhelming contentment, and he did not dwell upon them. Still, he grumbled a bit in walking, unable to maintain a natural stride without exacerbating the friction-burns coming from behind. Passing a basin of water, he splashed some water on his face and gargled, noticing the larger-than-average number of mushi floating around the porch.

Ginko sighed, muttering about the influences of the shamisen and sex, and pulled a mushi cigarette and match from his pocket. As he let the flame hover at the end of the roll, a distinctive non-herb burning smell erupted through his senses.

“Kuso!” he growled, patting down his fringe--a strand of his hair had caught fire. _I really need a haircut..._

As he went inside, his friend was already preparing tea, and he felt a vague déjà-vu from late the last night.

“Ohayō, Dashi-chan. Did I wake you?”

“Mm, yes, I noticed your absence. But I probably would have woken up soon anyway. I have some errands to do today.”

Ginko went to grab the food scraps from the previous night to start some broth, and then, after setting up the pot, accepted the genmaicha from his companion, cuddling in while waiting. The two sat in peaceful silence, soaking in their nearness, before Adashino broke the lull:

“How are you feeling?”

“A little sore down there, to be honest. I don’t know if I’ll be able to walk around without announcing to the town what we were doing last night…But it’s not too bad. I don’t regret anything.” He pecked Adashino on the cheek at that.

“Mm, sorry about that.” The doctor kissed the young mushishi on the lips and rose to a nearby cupboard. “I have some lotion you could use around the area--it’ll soothe the burning and help the abrasions heal.”

The young mushishi smiled warmly up at his friend. “Thanks. Will you put it on? I trust your touch.”

“Sure thing.”

Ginko unbuttoned his pants and splayed his legs out while the doctor crouched down and gently smeared the lotion around the other man’s slightly swollen opening, looking back and forth between eye and hole, gauging whether his friend felt any pain at his movements. Eventually the cream was fully rubbed in, and Adashino pressed his lips gently to his lover’s mouth.

“Okay, that should do. Does it feel any better?”

“Marginally. I think I’ll be able to walk normally at any rate.” Ginko ashed his cigarette, returned the kiss, and shuffled his pants back on. They passed lazy kisses amongst themselves for a time before the mushishi broke off, clutching his lover’s face and huffing, “I can hardly believe we’ve been doing this for less than a day now.”

Adashino grinned sweetly back and pecked him on the lips a last time before groaning, “Mmmm I really do have to go see some patients around town now. I’d better get ready.”

“Can I come?”

“Of course. Maybe you could even offer insight on some villagers’ ailments with your fancy-schmancy mushi-sight.”

The pair got up and as Adashino went out to wash up, Ginko strained the broth and started some rice. Waiting for the rice to cook and for his friend to finish outside, he gathered and re-fastened the clothes that he had strewn about the house.

The men shared breakfast and just as they got up to leave, Adashino began to giggle.

“What?”

The doctor pressed against the mushishi from behind and nuzzled against Ginko’s mussed bed-hair. “You’d better comb your hair if you don’t want people knowing.”

Ginko half-smirked. “You know, I had been joking about getting a haircut the last time I visited, but I really do need one. Would you be willing to do it?”

Adashino let out a low whine at that, detangling the shoulder-length strands with his fingers and gathering them into a ponytail at the nape of the other man’s neck, careful to leave the fringe in front hanging loose. “You could just pull it back.”

“Mm, it would still get caught on things, and I can’t be carrying extra things like combs around with me everywhere.”

“Okay…” Adashino relented, “But it’ll have to wait until after the errands. That okay?”

“Sure.” Ginko turned around, nosing and folding his lips into the other man’s. After a minute of delicious peace, the two reluctantly parted and headed out.

\--------------------------------

“Oops.”

“Oops?” Ginko turns around to look at his friend.

“It’s okay! I’ll fix it!”

“Hmmmm…” Ginko grumbles, returning his head to the position that Adashino had previously angled it, puffing on his mushi cigarette and listening more leerily to the snips that now brush suspiciously close to his scalp in the back.

\-----------------------------------

“Oh, the next visit is Toshiko. You’ve met her, although you may not remember since you were delirious at the time--she and her husband hosted you initially.”

“I remember her.” A coy smile crept across the mushishi’s visage. “I remember asking her about you when I first got to the village. She told me you were _strange._ ” He glanced at the doctor, teasingly raising an eyebrow.

Adashino sighed dramatically. “I don’t know _what_ these fishwives say about me behind my back, but despite our current efforts to be discreet, I’m sure she already knows every detail of our exploits last night, down to the particular contortions of your face when you came the second time.”

“Even I don’t know _that!_ ”

Adashino let out an amused sniff. “Your already excessive beauty was only amplified by the pristine expression of ecstasy illuminating your countenance.”

Ginko huffed and elbowed his friend in response. “Well now I’ll have to ask _her_ what I looked like, so I’ll get an honest report.”

The doctor laughed at that, but, settling down, clarified, “...Please don’t.”

The mushishi assuaged Adashino, squeezing his shoulder. “Of course I won’t… _Dashi-chan._ ” He lowered his voice to a whisper with the affectionate address.

Adashino turned toward his friend and smiled. “Good. We’re almost there, by the way.”

Ginko drank in the other man’s affectionate eye contact and returned it before looking away and refocusing. “Why are you visiting her?”

“She’s pregnant and due for a routine check-up. She also needs some medicine for morning sickness.”

“Ah, so nothing out of the ordinary?”

“Nope. Although she is particularly sensitive to her health this time around--she suffered a miscarriage last year. But that, too, did not occur under any unusual circumstances.”

“I see. Well, I’ll stay out of your way for this visit then.”

“Mm. Okay, we’re here.” The doctor stopped, gazing at his companion for a drawn-out moment.

Ginko smirked back at him. “You keep doing that, but I thought you were trying not to invite speculation.”

Adashino snapped out of it, looking away and rubbing his neck. “Ah, sorry. I keep getting distracted by how your hair moves in the breeze and I want to save the memory for later, after it’s shorter.”

The mushishi raised his eyebrow, not entirely sure how to reply. _He forms attachments much more intensely than I do, but I suppose that’s to be expected, since he lives in a single place. And he is a collector, after all._ “Sorry…” Ginko made to reach out for his lover, but was gently rebuffed, the embarrassed doctor now determined to successfully run through his errands undistracted.

Toshiko smiled at the men as they entered her minka. She feigned surprise at their arrival, as though she had not been furtively spying on the pair as they approached the hut, glancing radiantly at each other.

“Ohayō, Adashino-sensei. And Ginko-san! I overheard you were visiting--so glad you could make it over. I prepared food for both of you!”

Adashino was taken aback, peering at the large meal laid out on the tatami mats. “You didn’t have to… We hardly deserve all this.”

She shot him a look. “Of course you do, now sit, sit!” She turned to the mushishi and held his gaze with a conspiratorial grin. “How have you been enjoying your visit, young man?” Her eyes darted from Ginko to the doctor and back again in the middle of the sentence.

The suggestion was not lost upon the mushishi, but he kept his composure as he sat down. “Hey, what do you mean by that? You’re not _that_ much older than me.”

“Ah, but surely you prefer people mistaking you for younger than older--with your unusual hair color I’m confident you get more of the latter than the former. Even your... _friend_... here thought you were an old man when he first saw you from across the room. Of course, your youthfulness is not lost upon him now, I’m sure.”

“Toshiko-san!” The doctor balked, red-faced.

“Did you really?” Ginko mused, turning to his friend, raising his eyebrow.

“Well I hadn’t seen your face yet, and I was tired that morning--I had been playing the shamisen all night before, remember?”

“Mm, that makes sense. That shamisen certainly drew you in--even last night, when you were out of practice, your playing was entrancing.”

The doctor smiled at his friend. “Thanks. You weren’t too bad yourself.”

As Toshiko distributed food among herself and the two men, she watched their back and forth with interest, attempting to reconstitute the narrative from the men’s affectionate words and warm eye contact. “You also play the shamisen, Ginko-san?”

“Not in general, but I can play that shamisen. I don’t know how much the doctor communicated to you about its nature, but it is possessed by a mushi who was once a skilled musician. Some people can play the instrument if they are able to channel the mushi’s power.”

“Oh! May I try to play it?”

The men glanced nervously at each other, Adashino rubbing the back of his neck before replying. “You can try, but it may not work for you. Also, the shamisen caused those unsettling issues with the fish around the village, so if you are able to play it, it wouldn’t be a good idea to do it too much--maybe on a special occasion I could pass it around though.”

Ginko huffed a laugh at that. “Are you curious to see how many people in the village can play it, Adashino-sensei?”

“Well, it might lead to interesting conclusions…a scientist must always be curious about such things.” The pair shared a smirking gaze which was not lost upon the village woman.

 _I wonder what’s up with this shamisen... they probably won’t tell me._ “Well, I can be patient. I hope our favorite mushishi can make it for whatever occasion this lands upon, though. You two look positively glowing, by the way.”

Both men blushed at this observation, and Toshiko chuckled to herself. “Okay, the food’s all set. Itadakimasu!”

“Itadakimasu!”

\--------------------------------------

Adashino had started tentatively, first trimming the fringe in front, since keeping it a certain length was the only specification Ginko had made. But after that, moving to the back of his friend’s head, he finds it rather thrilling to lop off the longer strands, fond as he had become of them. As he meanders to the other man’s right ear, he realizes with a nervous shiver that he has cut a piece a little too close to the scalp.

“Oops.”

“Oops?”

Adashino freezes under his friend’s glance. “It’s okay! I’ll fix it!” He resolves to be a little more careful in his work, and goes to work cutting down the parts below the offending tuft to blend it in with the surrounding area. Although he had not originally intended to cut the back quite so short, a primal satisfaction gushes through him as the other man’s nape opens up before him, the hair that had obscured it now reduced to soft fuzz under the scrape of the scissors. Adashino indulges in brushing his thumb along this hairline, humming low, before moving up to blend the close-cropped parts at the neck and ear with the long fringe on the top left.

After these last careful clips and some deliberation, accompanied by copious ruffling of the mushishi’s hair in various angles and sporadic snips, the doctor utters a contented grunt.

“Okay, I’d better not do anything more or you’ll end up bald except for the part covering your face.” Adashino picks up a hogs hair brush and sweeps away the stray strands around the other man’s head and bare shoulders.

Ginko raises his eyebrow, first feeling at the fringe in front. “Mm, well this is long enough at least.” The doctor hands him a mirror and the mushishi, ashing his cigarette, holds it in one hand while feeling the back. “Oh wow, you did cut it pretty short back there.” His hand runs from the close-shorn hairs of the neck to the short feathery threads above and finally to the more substantial locks at the crown. Examining his reflection, he notes the incongruence between the long fringe on the left with the cropped-back part on the right. “Hmm…” _Well, it’ll grow back out eventually._

“I hope the part around the right ear grows out before it gets too cold, or I’ll have to buy a new hat.”

“Ah, sorry, I could have been a little more careful about that.”

“It’s not really your fault. I could have given you more direction. On the whole, you did what I asked for. Thank you.” _He’s done so much for me in the past day. It’s so refreshing to having someone caring for me but--I can’t get used to this. Still, better to enjoy it while it lasts._ He grins warmly, basking in the heat of the day and his lover’s proximity, cut by the mild sea breeze.

Adashino can see that the mushishi’s smile in the mirror is genuine, and relaxes a little. He riffles a hand through his friend’s fresh-cut hair and buries his forehead into the fluff. “Well, I like how it looks, and it gives me better access to certain _sensitive_ areas--” He noses down and kisses at the close hairs above the other man’s nape, traveling up behind his right ear, leaving a wake of nibbles and kisses. Hands traveling along the mushishi’s naked abdomen and chest, Adashino puffs hot words into Ginko’s ear. “I want you now.”

Ginko half-smirks at the doctor’s brazen declaration. “I’m still pretty sore, remember. But let’s go to your room and see what we can’t do about that.” The young mushishi stands up, taking his lover’s hand up with him, and stretches.

The doctor follows eagerly, finding himself pulled into an intent, grinning kiss before the two of them slip inside and hasten to his room, sliding the door closed behind them. Ginko shoves him against a wall fervently, wasting no time before unfastening his friend’s obi and opening his robe. Their mouths plunge together, tongues already twined, exploring deep, hands roaming, squeezing at musculature.

Ginko extracts himself, lightening the kisses, and, pausing to look into his friend’s enamored eyes, grabs his lover’s cock in hand. “Mm, already so hard, Dashi-kun.” He guides Adashino to the futon, and once they are in place--Adashino sprawling out on his back, Ginko looming above--begins stroking the other man’s eager flesh and lowers his lips to the crook of his neck. Continuing a slow and firm rhythm below, he kisses his way down the doctor’s slight torso. As he reaches the gathering of hair below the man’s naval, he grins up cheekily.

The young doctor lets out a gruff moan and gently urges Ginko’s head further down, threading fingers into the fluff at the crown of the mushishi’s head.

Growing ever more brash at these games, Ginko nuzzles Adashino’s cock, grinding his forehead against it and deeply inhaling its thick scent. He relishes in the hiss emanating from above when he slides the tip into his mouth and sucks at the head, pulsing his lips along the corona. His hands maneuver to cup the man’s balls and pump gently at the perineum as he takes Adashino in more deeply, dragging his tongue along the frenulum as he bobs up and down.

“Mm-oh! Kuso kuso kuso~” All of Adashino’s vitality courses through his stimulated center--only a scrap of reason remains to supply reminders that Ginko hadn’t done this before--let alone done it to him--and it would be overly aggressive to thrust into his mouth, Still, he grapples at Ginko’s hair, trying and failing to get a good hand-hold on the close-snipped locks, whining and inwardly cursing himself for cutting the man’s hair so short.

As if reading the doctor’s mind, the young mushishi giggles around the former’s cock and, withdrawing, tilts his head impishly, cheesing. “And whose fault is that?”

Adashino gasps out a reply “Well--now I know--which spots to leave long--Will you at least let me grab onto your bangs? I know that’s a sensitive spot for you…”

“Hhmmmm, okay, I can keep my left eyelids shut.”

Adashino looks forward at Ginko, softness permeating his flushed breathlessness. “I don’t mind, Ginko-chan.” He caresses the short strands around the mushishi’s right ear with his left hand and tentatively fingers at the long fringe with his right. “Is it really all that dangerous?”

The young mushishi sighs heavily. “Not that I know of. It hasn’t caused any trouble since, well, you know. If… you really want to see it I could open my eyelids.”

“Only if it makes you feel comfortable.”

Ginko slowly opens his left eyelids and Adashino gently traces his thumb along the orbital bone.

“Oh, it just looks like a normal empty socket to me--I don’t see any profound blackness like you described.”

“Mm, that’s probably for the best.” Ginko retracts the eyelids. “I think I feel more comfortable just keeping them closed though. It’s what I’m used to. You can play with the hair in front if you want, but only here--in private.” He extends forward, placing a quick, delicate kiss on Adashino’s lips, before returning, crouched, to revive the organ between the other man’s legs, neglected as it was in the tender, exposed moment.

Ginko wastes no time to return the firm pumping of his mouth, diving deeper with each suck--

-kkhoughcck-ck-ck-

The young mushishi tries to suppress his gag reflex but can’t quite muffle the sound of it.

Adashino loosens his grip on his friend’s bangs. “Hey, hey, don’t choke yourself, koibito. Just hold the base of it and move your lips to where your fingers end, okay?”

The mushishi follows his friend’s advice and soon Adashino is fully hard again, his breath ragged. With his one free hand, Ginko fondles the other man’s balls and then probes around the perineum with a single finger, exploring further back, circling the other man’s tight entrance with his middle finger while digging the knuckles of his thumb into the sensitive strip in front.

Adashino groans loudly at his lover’s deft touches and succumbs to bliss, murmuring both devotional and crass declarations under his breath, riding along the surging crests of pleasure. Ginko gladly hums, satisfied at the reaction to his ministrations.

“Kuso kuso-ah! Ah Ginko~chan--I’m gonna~!”

Ginko feels the telltale pulsing along Adashino’s cock and realizes he is not ready to take all the release in his mouth, and, panicking slightly, yanks the flesh out from his lips and milks it ardently with his hand, strings of cum spraying up onto his slightly-cringing face.

Adashino is lost in sensation, the additional external teasing of his prostate and ass having transported his orgasm to some distant ether. When he regains his sight, he is met with a wanton vision--Ginko, still hovering over his cock, sticky release dripping from his face. The doctor lets out a primal growl and reaches out, smearing the spunk onto the short feathery strands above the mushishi’s right ear. “Mm, you are so sexy right now.”

“Right back at you. Will you grab me a washcloth though? I don’t want this stuff to dry on my face...”

“Of course!” The doctor bolts up rapidly, the headrush hitting him only after he is already halfway across the room. When he returns from the other room he tackles Ginko, wiping off the man’s face with a damp rag. Tossing it aside, he straddles the mushishi and begins to unbutton his trousers. “Your turn.”

\-----------------------------------

They reach the pond with a good chunk of time to spare before the golden light of dusk threatens to overtake the solid blue sky.

On approach, the men converse lightly, chatting about the local flora and fauna, Ginko pointing out and describing various mushi. At various points along their hike one man gazes at the other, enamored, and drags him off to make out in the surrounding foliage. They clutch hands all the way, periodically peering around them to make sure no one can see how their fingers interlace playfully. However, as they near their destination, shrill voices piping up in the distance dissolve the union of their hands. The lovers share a reluctant last kiss before moving out into the open.

“Hey hey look!”  
“It’s Adashino-sensei and his mushishi friend!”  
“Maybe they have mochi for us…”  
“Oh, what happened to Ginko-san’s hair?”  
“He cut it, stupid.”  
“My mom cuts my dad’s hair. I wonder if Ginko-san had Adashino-sensei do it~!”  
“Shut up with that gooey stuff! You’re so gross!”  
“Am not!”  
“Are too!”  
The two start splashing each other with as much gusto as they can muster, while the third tries to talk them down. “Hey, stop! They won’t give us mochi if we’re fighting…”

Ginko snickers at the exchange, while Adashino attempts to keep a straight face. “Sorry, but we don’t have any mochi today!”

The third kid looks forlorn and squeals at the other two. “See, look what you did!” He joins the fray, splashing both vengefully.

Ginko elbows his lover, grinning. “Let’s jump in! Is there a good spot to dive in from a height?”

“Mm, see that branch?” Adashino puts down the picnic sack had had been carrying and points to a broad camphor tree with several low, sturdy limbs. However, in place of listening, Ginko has already begun stripping down. “Hold on!” Kicking off his trousers, he resumes attention. “Sorry, where?” Adashino sighs and stands behind the mushishi, lifting Ginko’s arm with his own in the direction of the branch overhanging the pond.

“Ah, I see! Race you to it!” Ginko darts away through the brush and Adashino jogs behind him. By the time the doctor reaches the camphor tree, Ginko is already halfway up to the jumping branch.

“You sure are energetic right now.” Adashino crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows, watching Ginko clamber up the tree in his underwear.

The young mushishi pauses and ponders his burst of reckless vim. “I think Toshiko-san made our tea very strong at lunch and it’s just now hitting me.”

The doctor chuckles. “Ah, yeah, she does make pretty potent tea.”

“It may also be the presence of the kids--brings out the whimsy in me. But sometimes children know better than adults how to have fun. So come on up!”

Adashino smirks up at his lover and removes his yukata, climbing up after Ginko in his fundoshi. Soon both make it up to the thick branch that perches over the water. Before Ginko can crawl along it, Adashino pulls his friend close, murmuring in his ear, “And yet we have so many more fun things to do as adults.” He draws the mushishi into a soft, sweet kiss, savoring the whisper of their still-dry skin against each other.

Across the pool the kids reach a stalemate in their splash-fight, and look around for the older boys, finally spotting their crouching figures in the camphor tree.

“What are they--”  
“Ara ma-a! They’re ~kissing~”  
One kid stares catatonically up at the men until realization hits. “GE~TSU! Why are old people so gross!”

The loud “GE~TSU” reaches up into the camphor tree and the men break apart, startled.

“Oops. Well it’s definitely not a secret now.” Ginko quirks his mouth, evaluating his friend’s reaction.

The doctor smirks sardonically. “Toshiko-san will be ecstatic. But we have more pressing matters to attend to: Are you gonna jump in or what?”

Ginko giggles at his lover and leans in for a quick peck on the lips before crawling to the edge of the branch. Maintaining balance, he stands and shuffles to a good diving place. Before making his plunge, he grins back to where Adashino sits, then, examining the smooth water below him, he leaps, cannonballing down with a giant splash, kids cheering in the background.

Adashino follows the mushishi’s path along the tree branch. “Oi, get out of the way, Ginko-kun!”

“But I want to feel your spray, Dashi-kun~!” The young mushishi shoots a puckish grin up to his friend.

“Hey, there are children present!”

“I’m aware. What were you just thinking that you thought that was inappropriate?” Ginko continues looking up with that shit-eating grin, but nevertheless paddles back from the impact area.

Adashino huffs stubbornly and launches off the branch, arcing his arms and body into a smooth dive, leaving only a small burble of a splash in his wake.

“Tch...” _So he’s gonna play it that way._ Ginko’s eye widens when he sees a strip of black fabric floating to the surface, and he rips through the water to grab it before his friend surfaces. Skimming the liquid from his face, Adashino is met with the sight of Ginko trying to keep a straight face, one arm behind his back. Before he can react, the young mushishi turns toward the kids and shouts “Hey, catch!” tossing the balled-up underwear toward them with brazen caprice.

“I’ll get it!”  
“No, me!”  
Two kids collide with each other in their efforts while the third swims to the fundoshi’s landing place.  
“Haha, let’s play keep-away from Adashino-sensei!”

“That’s the idea!” Ginko hollers, “Hey, throw it back to me!”

The underwear flies weakly back, landing halfway between the kids and the men. The flustered doctor sees his chance and swims single-mindedly for it, struggling to overtake Ginko’s progress toward the fabric. Alas, just before he reaches the garment, his friend latches onto it and, swinging his arm, whips it back at the kids, who toss it among themselves.

“Ginko!!” Adashino slices through the water to the kids as the young mushishi laughs giddily. Seeing that the doctor is about to overtake the children, he rips over. Just as Adashino leaps to retrieve the fundoshi midair, Ginko catches up and tackles the other man to the cheers of the kids.

“Aghh what are you doing?!” The determined mushishi latches onto Adashino’s back like a bear cub. “Ginkooo~!” the doctor yells plaintively. The kids whoop and laugh at the sight and continue to pass the ball of fabric among themselves.

Adashino lowers his voice to address his friend. “Ginko-chan, please...if only so we can go climb that tree and jump again--” At this, the doctor feels the mushishi sliding off of him and away.

“Hey, hey, pass it!” The current possessor of Adashino’s underwear obliges and Ginko tosses the fabric back to its true owner.

The kids let out a unified groan of disappointment and betrayal as the doctor slips his undergarment back on. Unflapped, Adashino shouts, “Race you there!” to his friend and speeds toward the bank.

Not wanting to be outpaced, Ginko darts after him. He doesn’t catch up to his friend until they reach the tree, at which point Adashino turns around and clutches his lover. The pair grapple each other giddily, spinning around as they nuzzle their faces together, giggling and making out in turn.

Ginko breaks off to speak. “Can you do flips in the air when you dive?”

“Mm, I haven’t really tried.”

“I think I can do one from the height and clearance of the branch.”

“Yeah?” Adashino watches as his friend again scrambles up the tree and follows soon after him.

“Okay, here goes!” The young mushishi takes off and does a single somersault, but lands inelegantly, his back slapping against the water. He surfaces, sputtering, “Agh, I got water in my nose!” before splashing away from the diving zone.

“Well, you almost got a full rotation in. I think I’ll do a less risky spin.” Adashino does a pencil dive, whirling laterally like a drill, making sure to pinch his nose before impact with the water. Upon surfacing he swims to his friend. “You okay?”

The mushishi, still trying to snort out pond water, responds, “I’ll be fine, but I think I’ll take a break from diving.” Slotting a finger under the fabric at Adashino’s hip, he continues, “Maybe we could resume a game of keep-away though?”

Adashino darts away from his friend. “No way!”

Ginko shrugs and does an underwater somersault. Upon resurfacing, he exclaims, “Can you do that?!”

“Show-off…”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Ginko teases. “Take a deep breath!” He plunges in again, pulling his friend’s legs down and taking in the annoyed look on Adashino’s face underwater, pecking him on the lips before they surface.

“Please don’t do that…” Adashino looks at him seriously.

Ginko’s face pinches in disappointment. “Spoilsport.”

“Really.”

“Okayyyy… Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Let’s go see what the kids are up to.”

The pair swim leisurely over to the shallows and are again met with a barrage of youthful enthusiasm. As they approach, the girl pipes up, “Ginko-san, did Adashino-sensei cut your hair?”

“Yes. Do you think he did a good job?” Ginko riffles his hair with a flourish.

“I guess...but why did he leave the front part long?”

“It’s to hide my missing eye.”

“You have a missing eye?! Can we see?”

“No, a mushi ate it, and it’s still there. It’s dangerous.” Adashino watches the exchange with interest, seeing how it mirrors one of his first interactions with the mushishi. He considers what it means that Ginko had in fact just let him look at his ‘empty’ eye socket earlier in the day.

Another child joins in. “But aren’t you a mushishi? Shouldn’t you be able to exterminate it, or at least banish it?”

“This mushi is particularly powerful. And mushishi don’t know very much about it, since it’s a manifestation of profound darkness--such mushi are, naturally, harder to observe. In any case, mushishi aren’t supposed to necessarily exterminate mushi. When mushi invade people’s lives, we evaluate the situation and restore balance--usually this can be done by a mere change of behavior by the people.”

The boy who asked the question grunts, unsatisfied with the response, leaving the girl to respond. “You said there were mushi in the pond yesterday. Can you show them to us? Maybe if we know where they are we could find some way to see them!”

Ginko considers this for a moment and dives into a didactic about the various types of pond mushi. Upon further reflection, he thinks of certain experiments to guide the children through that might allow them to indirectly sense the spirits by how they fill their environmental niche, how they affect the visible aspects of nature. The kids eagerly follow through, less interested in the philosophy than the prospect of seeing a mushi, but maintain interest nevertheless.

Adashino watches how Ginko interacts with the kids, how he gently tells them that, no, that vivid green algae, or that brief sparkle of sunlight is not a mushi, “But see how those minnows move in a particular formation, it’s because they’re running away from a larger mushi!” The doctor makes some interjections about the medicinal properties of some of the samples the kids bring to the mushishi, but otherwise keeps to observation. He ponders how natural it seems for his lover to imbue the children with an excitement for learning, despite having some difficulty wrangling them.

He also ponders the droplets of water that glisten on his lover’s skin, how the man lifts his hand every now and then to feel the novel sensation of his short hair, his congenial smile when the kids say or find something interesting. He finds himself craving Ginko’s attention, the moments when they lock eyes and the mushishi smiles at him warmly.

Once, Ginko beckons him over to look at something in his hands. When he gets close enough, peering at the liquid in Ginko’s tightly sealed hands, the latter raises them up rapidly, giving Adashino a face full of water. The kids bawl with laughter, head over heels with mirth.

“Oh, it’s on now!” Adashino starts splashing his friend with all his might. Ginko returns his efforts and in no time the kids join the brawl.

The doctor soon tires of the game, but before wearing himself out completely, he decides to put his all into one last move, pouncing on the mushishi, bowling both men over into the water. In the brief moment before they surface, Ginko gazes at him, surprise melting into a soft expectation. When they surface, gasping quick breaths, Ginko pulls them back under, sealing their lips. Glad to again have his lover’s attention, Adashino folds passionately into the kiss. When they part upon surfacing, both men smile broadly at each other, hungry for more.

“Geee~ I think they’re gonna kiss again!”  
“Oh, let them be.”  
“Maybe we should go...it’s getting late…”

Adashino breaks into their chatter. “Hey, Toshiko-san made a big feast for us for lunch, including some sweet mochi--she might still have leftovers if you go there soon enough!”

The kids gawk at each other and speed off to shore, not waiting to dry off before whipping their clothes back on.  
“Thank you Adashino-sensei~~!”  
“Thanks for showing us the mushi Ginko-san~!”  
“And for splashing water at Adashino-sensei!”  
“And for keep-away!”  
The boys guffaw at this, while the girl adds,  
“And for kissing Adashino-sensei~!”  
“Geee~tsu why do you like it so much when they kiss?!”  
The boy pushes the girl, who shoves back in turn.  
“Because it’s so kawaii~!”

The men wave goodbye at the kids, arm in arm below the water. When the children are out of sight, they turn to each other, beaming intently. Adashino dives in for a kiss, but Ginko plays coy, darting his head away apace, playing keep-away now with his lips. Adashino moans at the deferred gratification, gripping more tightly to his lover, pressed tightly enough to feel the rumble of the other man’s chuckling breaths. Ginko finally indulges him, kissing him first lightly between the eyebrows, then brushing his lips down his friend’s nose before finally landing on his lips.

Adashino responds in kind, wrapping both his legs around the mushishi, buoyed partially as they are in the water. The pair remains this way for some time, tongues canoodling, twirling languidly, their gentle grind a persistent spark sealing them off from the coolness of the water in the dimming afternoon. As this spark gains lambency, underwear grows cumbersome for both men. Mercifully, Ginko breaks off for a moment to unburden himself and his partner, casting the damp scraps of fabric to an outcrop of mallows at the bank.

They return to their ardent press, growing more firm, grappling, squeezing, spinning faster in the water. With nontrivial effort, Adashino extracts himself, gasping, “I want you… so bad. I want you hard. Inside me.”

Ginko gapes at him, flushed. “Do you have-?”

“Yes, in a pocket of my yukata.” Adashino brings a finger to his lip. “Now where did I leave that--? Oh! At the base of the camphor tree!”

The men wade, dazed as they are by the passion of a few moments ago, to the bank of the pond. Adashino retrieves a towel from the picnic sack. After patting themselves dry, the pair meander toward the camphor tree, making out along the way. When they finally reach their destination, Adashino darts forward, leaning his back against the trunk, striking an alluring pose in the golden light, batting come hither eyes.

Ginko wastes no time coming hither, caressing his lover’s hips and thighs and the ridges of his ribcage, breathing in the clean scent at his neck, while Adashino exhales pungent words into his ear. “I don’t think I have to prepare much after that pencil dive, koibito. Just let me grab the gel and we can get started, okay?”

The doctor ducks aside as his titillated and vaguely scandalized friend giggles. “Did you plan it that way?”

Adashino shoots his lover a mischievous look, a glint in his eye. “Maybe… I was _awfully_ insistent that we dive again, wasn’t I?” A smirk flashes over his face as he rises, jar in hand. Dipping his fingers into the carrageenan, he strides swiftly back to Ginko, massaging the other man’s cock, spreading the gel liberally along his length.

Ginko's head spins at the slick, firm attention. “Mmm that’s already so good, Dashi-chan.”

“Well, this will be better.” Adashino extracts another dollop of lube, carefully places the jar on the ground a couple arm-lengths away from them, and retakes his place between Ginko and the camphor tree. Stroking his partner with one hand, he parts his ass and smears lube around his entrance. Without hesitation he plunges two fingers into the flexible opening, whining out breathy exhales as his fingers graze along the sensitive lump inside. After a few moments of this, the doctor withdraws the digits from himself, gasping out, “I’m ready-!”

“Really? Already?”

Adashino smirks at his lover. “I’m not inexperienced at this, remember. And after your acquaintance with the sensation last night, do you think you’ll be able to resist touching yourself in that way?” To emphasize his point, he digs a finger pointedly into the other man’s perineum, eliciting an ecstatic heave. “You’ll want to be stretched out again soon enough, Ginko-chan,” he adds to his lurid advance.

The young mushishi cries bonelessly in response to his friend’s expert caresses. “Ahhh~! Mm okay yes I think you’re right oooOOoOOh kuso yeah-”

Adashino huffs a laugh at his friend’s incapacitation, but withdraws his hand, wanting that intense feeling for himself. He twists himself around, back to the other man, reaching both arms back to press the latter against himself. “Fuck me, Ginko,” he rasps.

The young mushishi, left to his own devices, hesitates a moment, backing up slightly to part the other man’s ass and position himself. However, before he can begin to thrust inward, his friend beats him to the punch, sinking down against him, impaling himself on Ginko's thoroughly hard cock.

Ginko hisses at the taut heat that abruptly surrounds him, and propels gently forward. It takes little time for his hips smack against the doctor’s ass, cock fully sheathed, and he begins to rock in and out, beckoned by the whining gasps ahead. “Good?”

“AaahhhaHHHaaaaahhh… Yes… Ginko-chan~! Ooooo you can go faster though--as long as… you don’t climax too soon…”

The mushishi acquiesces to the caterwauling doctor’s request and rides the other man earnestly, slowing only when he feels the pressure mounting within. In these slower periods, Ginko lends greater force to his thrusts, listening as Adashino’s whines segue into desperate yelps. Grabbing onto a handful of Adashino’s hair and tugging, he growls low, “You like that, Dashi-chan?”

“Mmm fucking yes. Keep doing that, Ginko-kun--oh-OH~!” Adashino digs his fingernails into Ginko’s ass, rending trails along his skin--Ginko has picked up the pace again, all the while sucking small love-bites around the doctor’s neck.

They topple headlong on the sine wave of passion, the animal keens of their rutting a chorus to the hazy orange gloaming. Ginko soon finds that slowing his lunges no longer quells the sweet feeling of inevitability, and, remembering what Adashino had done the previous night, reaches around to jerk off the other man. “Adashino~ I’m close…”

“Hold on, koibito- so...am…I--” The energy pulsing through Adashino’s core bounces through him while the radiant pressure building at his base launches it further. He writhes in electric euphoria, his vision fading in and out as ki springs up and down his spine, releasing liquid vitality as sweat, as tears, as cum, lost in the headrush.

The doctor spasms around Ginko, overwhelming the mushishi, who loses himself in turn, surrendering to the bliss of the other man’s body.

Lit on all sides by dusky pink, the pair collapse warm and sticky against the camphor tree, a single heaving unit of rapture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dashi and Ginko  
> Sittin in a tree  
> K-I-S-S-I-N-G
> 
> ...
> 
> Adashino doesn't know it, but he just gave Ginko a _very_ trendy haircut.
> 
> Slash the haircut I gave my then-girlfriend over a year ago, except instead of complaining about the short bits she complained about the long parts being too long... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> This is the first chapter I've done with mixed verb tenses--I'm dipping my toes in the water for more ambitious story structures, with flashbacks and shit.


	6. Attachment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm realizing that with the time skips that I'm planning, the kids here are definitely not the same ones as in the anime. There's just...  
> ...a constant stream of child-trios that hound Adashino...  
> ...because he hosts an after school program...???
> 
> idk I'm really just making this up as I go along.
> 
> CW: explicit sex

The next day the doctor’s errands take the pair to an adjacent village.

Ginko walks swiftly as they visit the various huts, leering at clouds above. “Winds are changing, Dashi-kun. We’d better get back before the rain starts.” The doctor heeds his friend’s advice, gazing warily up at the sky himself.

Despite Adashino’s attempts to cut his visits short, the men find themselves sprinting back in the dim wet air, drenched to the bone, rattling at the distant bellow of incipient thunder. When they make it back they strip down gladly, warming up with tea and a shared blanket, making love as the storm moves in.

The rain lasts for days, an entire third-moonphase hidden behind clouds. In the dry haven of Adashino’s house and storage shed, the men drown in one another. They split their time between studious cuddling--reading and writing, trading stories, examining curios--and heaving bouts of passion, often with little physical demarcation between the dual pursuits, fucking underneath the bookshelves of the doctor’s library.

The day before the storm breaks, Toshiko comes by to notify the doctor of a rash of sickness through the town. When she knocks on the door, she hears scrambling footsteps and a frantic susurrus--  
_”Hey, wait, don’t open it yet, let me get my pants back on!”_  
_“Oi, Ginko, put the underwear in my room!”_  
\--before the door slides open, revealing a dazed Adashino, his yukata haphazardly draped, revealing myriad love-bites along his neck and shoulders, a sheen of sweat coating his skin. Ginko slinks in the background, shirt unbuttoned, cigarette perched on his lip. The village woman cringes as the stale masculine stench hits her.

“Yada-aaa! Open a window, will you?”

The men peer at each other, embarrassed. While Ginko sheepishly buttons up his shirt, Adashino takes action, rushing to open the windows on sides of the house that won’t let rain in. “Ahh, gomen’nasai, Toshiko-san. We were-ah… it’s umm--yeah, sorry.”

The village woman sees the hangdog expressions on the men’s faces and brightens, chuckling, as she enters the house. “It’s okay--I remember those first months with my husband.” She gives them a knowing look and turns to Ginko. “You know we were lucky to marry each other, having already fallen in love. They say that those who come together in passion will stay together in tears, but that has yet to happen for me and Hiroki-chan.”

The mushishi responds, amused by the woman’s forthrightness. “I’m glad it’s worked out for you two. I suppose it’s more common in these small villages to end up with someone you love, though, since most people are on even social footing?”

“Ah, perhaps. I suppose your love didn’t tell you much about me then, huh?”

Ginko turns to the doctor, confused. The latter speaks up, explaining. “Toshiko-san was the first woman I was set up with. My status is--complicated, since I have no standing as the son of a foreigner, but I was adopted by my master. Because of my dubious beginnings, I didn’t have to endure a complicated match with another high-ranking family, so my master made only loose arrangements--vague promises to Toshiko-san’s family. But it broke my heart to see how she loved her Hiroki-san, and, well--you know my own proclivities--so after my master died I feigned excessive grief and convinced her and my parents that I was not ready to marry yet. In the fallout of my rejection, Toshiko-san’s parents turned to the other standing offer from Hiroki-san’s family.”

“I owe you a great deal, Adashino-sensei.” Toshiko bows her head.

The doctor clutches the back of his head nervously. “Ahh, you know how I am… it was for the best, Toshiko-san--for the both of us.”

The trio stand in silence for a moment, before Ginko speaks up. “Why are you here, Toshiko-san? If you have something to convey, why were you chosen, in the state you’re in?”

“Hey, I’m not _that_ far along! I can handle myself in a little rain… And after all, I don’t want my child to be afraid of a little weather--may as well get them acclimated to the seasons in utero.” She smirks brassily before the worry creeps back in. “But, in addition to that...I am one of the few people not afflicted.”

Toshiko goes on to describe the illness cropping up across the village and beckons the men to come help. They start with Hiroki--as the trio enter the minka and approach the sleeping man’s futon, Ginko inhales sharply. _White worms latched onto his temples… Shimatta…_ Turning to the doctor, he states, “This is my area. Have you heard of the _shissei hiru_?”

“Ah, yes, they’re described in one of my mushi books--do you think that is the case right now?”

“Yes.” Ginko casts his gaze down.

“Oh, good, then they shouldn’t be too difficult to get rid of.” Adashino tries to parse Ginko’s forlorn disposition.

Toshiko interrupts the mushishi’s introspection. “Wait, what? Are you saying that everyone in the village is afflicted with leeches?”

Ginko answers, only briefly looking up at the woman as he talks. “Mm, of a sort. Shissei hiru are a mushi that normally live in water and feed off of sea animals, but when conditions in a place are hot, wet, and humid for a long period of time, they move up onto land and drink energy from land animals. People who live in such climates usually eat food that naturally repels the leeches, but in places that only have brief periods of weather like this, shissei hiru can be a problem.”

“Ah, I see. How can we remove them?”

“Like I said, people need only eat certain types of food--plants that grow in tropical areas tend to contain compounds that repel local parasitic mushi. We three probably didn’t contract the leeches because of that tea you prepared the other day, and the sugar in the dessert--both are grown in tropical regions. If you give your husband either of those, the leeches should disperse shortly. As for the rest of the town, I have some of the isolated compound with me and could prepare medicine. The substance remains active for about a half-moonphase after consumption--I imagine this storm will break before then, but I can leave extra medicine with Adashino-sensei before I depart.”

The doctor flinches as his lover says these last words. “Ginko-san--”

“I will leave tomorrow. I’ve overstayed my welcome--I should have known. I’m sorry.”

Toshiko shoots a puzzled glance at the mushishi. “Eh?”

“Since a light vein runs not far from this place, my tendency to attract mushi is particularly burdensome. Wherever I go will become a nest for mushi should I stay too long, but here, the effect seems to be particularly rapid. That’s why I have to keep wandering, and why I must leave soon. With me here, giving medicine to people will be a mere palliative measure before some other misfortune strikes.”

The village woman looks at the men, suddenly understanding the doctor’s sudden anxiety, the mushishi’s guilt. “Well it’s not a catastrophe yet, and perhaps these leeches would have come even if you weren’t here. So thank you for being here to treat my husband, and the rest of the town.” She finishes her statement with a reverent bow.

Unable to accept the village woman’s gratitude, Ginko begins to stride toward the door. “C’mon, Adashino-sensei, let’s get the medicine ready.”

As the pair walk back, Adashino sheepishly reaches for his friend’s hand. Ginko accepts the touch, and squeezes the other man’s hand briefly. “I’m sorry. But you know this is how it’ll have to be.”

“I know.” Adashino gazes sullenly at the mud and gray, rain-slick rocks ahead of his steps.

Ginko stops abruptly, pulling Adashino back with him. “Hey, I’m not gone yet.” He clutches the other man’s face, stroking a thumb along his rain-misted cheekbone. “I’m right here, Dashi-chan,” he murmurs, just before leaning in for a gentle kiss. Adashino returns it without great fervor and ducks his head into the damp crook of his friend’s neck, inhaling deep and sighing.

“I’ll miss your scent, Ginko-chan.”

The mushishi quirks his mouth into a bittersweet smile. “Same.” He lets the moment stand, embracing the other man on the path, before breaking off, holding Adashino by the shoulders. “Let’s get to where it’s dry now, and try to produce and dispense the medicine before daylight runs out. Then we’ll have the evening to ourselves.”

\---------------------------

Even enlisting Toshiko’s help, the pair don’t finish their work until after dark, and collapse entwined on the doctor’s futon, unwilling to do much more than cuddle on the last night of Ginko’s visit. To the mushishi’s delight, Adashino dozes off in his arms.

Still, come morning, Ginko awakens to find that the doctor had, at some point in the night, managed to worm his way out of the embrace and curl up on the opposite side of the futon. Sighing, the mushishi rises. As the fog of sleep clears from his brain, he begins to extract his things from the temporary home they have made in Adashino’s domicile. When he goes outside to clean himself, he is pleased to see that the clouds have begun to thin above, that he may not have to travel in heavy rain.

After setting up some tea and rice he rouses the doctor, who grumbles and whines at the morning light.

“Mmmm… Is it already morning?”

“Yes. The rain’s slowed down too…” Ginko trails off, the implication clear.

Adashino rises and nuzzles his friend. “Ahhh, okay.”

“I made breakfast.”

The doctor smiles blearily at his lover and kisses him briefly. The pair share breakfast, clinging to one another, savoring their time. Next to empty teacups and bowls, their chaste cuddling segues into desperate rubbing--they indulge in a last quickie before parting--Adashino comes between Ginko’s thighs, then surprises the other man by jumping into action afterward, sucking off the mushishi, drinking him in.

They part on good terms, Ginko giving the doctor an address he can use to relay messages to him and other mushishi. “I’m concerned that my prolonged presence here has attracted a great deal of mushi--it may be awhile before I come back, so as to let them settle down. But in the meantime we can write to each other, Dashi-chan.”

The men snog at length in the coolness that is left after the storm--days of rain having wrung all the wet heat from the air--before finally prying themselves apart. Ginko leaves feeling uprooted, a sensation at once strange and familiar as the taste of himself that lingers from the other man’s lips.

\----------------------------

“You’re here much later than I expected from your letter.”

“Sorry, I was caught up in a storm on the western coast.” Ginko hopes that this excuse will suffice. Alas, he is met with a quick reply--

“But that storm wasn’t too bad after the first couple days--surely the rain didn’t keep you when you could have just bought a farmers hat, knowing that the rain would stop here in the mountain’s shadow.”

Ginko shifts uneasily in the grass, preparing a suitable alibi for the 16-year-old scribe. “I--was distracted. My friend Adashino-sensei also has a sizable collection of books--but with foreign texts in addition to mushi phenomena. I holed up there while it rained outside, and he shared some of his translations of Western science books and poetry.” Ginko smiles to himself, reflecting on that half-moon he spent steeped in intellect, in distant poesy, in sex.

_Tangled up in one other, naked on the floor of Adashino’s storehouse, Ginko puffs on a post-coital cigarette while his lover recites a poem from memory. When the latter finishes, the mushishi muses, “I think this poet was in love with his spiritual mentor.”_

_“Ah, you’ve changed your tune on the role of sensuality in his verse, then.”_

_“Well, there’s only so much I can hear without being saturated by the eroticism of it all--he clearly knew the craving of the flesh, and its fulfillment.”_

_Adashino sniffs out a laugh. “And you don’t think this is based on other recent events in your life?”_

_“Well, maybe-” Ginko is cut off by the light, sparkling panic of nerves activating along his flank and begins heaving with giggles--Adashino has begun tickling him amidst their banter. The mushishi finds himself pinned to the ground, utterly at the other man’s mercy._

_“Hee-he-hee ahhh Dashi-chan~! Stop, stop!”_

_Obliging, Adashino smirks at his lover and leans forward, taking his mouth._

Tanyuu watches as Ginko’s eye glazes over. “Ginko-san?”

“Oh-ah, sorry, Tanyuu-san. I just started thinking about some of Adashino-sensei’s… poetry.”

A quiet twinge of jealousy yanks at the young scribe’s gut. However, unwilling to consider herself a petty player in romantic folly, she recontextualizes the personal hurt as a pang of pious revulsion. _That’s that doctor that some other mushishi have mentioned in their more bawdy tales, isn’t it? How strange for someone of such social standing to feel the need to sell his body like that. And how… improper for a virtuous mushishi like Ginko to fall under his spell._

“I--think I’ve heard of this man… He has a reputation among some of the traveling mushishi.”

“Mm.” Ginko grunts in embarrassment, wants to drop the topic. To this end, he looks off into the distance, digging a cigarette out of his pocket.

“Ginko-san--” Tanyuu frowns, trying to find the right words as her tense compatriot lights up. “I hope you’re careful about this--prostitutes use their wiles to their own ends, and you have to keep on the move. It’s unfit for you to get tangled up with another, let alone another who doesn’t have your, or the public good’s, best interests at heart.”

Ginko bristles at this assessment of his friend’s character. “You don’t know Adashino-sensei, Tanyuu-san, and neither do those other mushishi, much as those other mushishi don’t know their own mission. He’s not like that. He cares about his village and about me--” He turns to look at the young scribe, softening as he sees the empathy in her eyes. “But you are right that I must keep moving. I did stay too long, this time around, but I left before anything got too bad.”

“Yokatta.” The word is all the girl can muster at first, and they sit in awkward silence for a time before she adds, “I’m sorry, Ginko-san. I didn’t mean to question your judgment.”

The traveling mushishi takes a deep drag and exhales a long plume of smoke before replying.

“It’s okay. My judgment _is_ somewhat compromised by my affection when I’m around him. It’s good for me to remember my purpose as a mushishi, and the risks my presence poses.”

“You really care for him, huh?”

Ginko looks at her sheepishly, resting his cheek on a palm, his countenance still retaining some of that faraway lover’s dreaminess. “Yes.”

“I see.” Tanyuu buries her disappointment in the deep dark parts of her, the same places where she stores her anger and frustration for her curse, her immobility. She sees plainly the longing on her companion’s face. She sees that it is not for her, despite being physically pointed in her direction. As she shoves down the ache, the teenage scribe resolves to advertise more distant assignments to Ginko, missions that would take him far from that village on the western coast--as well as her own valley.

 _To keep attachment at bay,_ she tells herself.

\---------------------------------

It is nearly the winter solstice when Ginko returns to the seaside town. In his travels, the mushishi rarely has moments of pre-acquaintance--he mainly avoids the large, well-trodden paths that connect the provinces--light veins and mushi phenomena rarely occur along these human-forged routes, after all. So it is that he is struck by the ironic novelty of familiarity upon his approach. He knows this place, not just in the way that he knows what a place like this is generally like. He knows the view of the town from above, how the trees wreath the gabled roof of Adashino’s house and jaggedly cede the view to the sea and sky beyond.

Although he had been quick to come to the doctor’s defense with Tanyuu, the young scribe had planted a seed of doubt into him, a seed that sprouted and grew with distance and time away from his Dashi. Sometimes, on his travels, he catches himself wondering whether Adashino had been completely honest with him on his last visit.  
_Does he really value me just as I am?_  
_Maybe he just wanted the sex, and likes my exotic coloring._  
_Maybe he only likes how I attract mushi._  
_Does that not concern him?_  
_Would he prioritize my presence over the safety of his town?_

When he wakes and touches himself in the middle of the night, Ginko fantasizes about his friend, but after a moon, begins to lose grasp of the details of Adashino’s body, even his face. Increasingly, his imaginings go down a sour route--entering the town when the doctor is entertaining another traveler, Adashino turning him away. The mushishi finds himself often having to jerk himself away to a happier fantasy, closing his eyes and forcing himself back into Dashi-chan’s room, willing the fingers curled inside, the hand grasping his cock to be his friend’s. The growing doubt within him stifles his orgasms, the whimpering climaxes just enough to put him back to sleep.

Relief from the suffocating vines of uncertainty materializes one chilly day in the mountains with a persistent rattle in his pack. Setting down the box, Ginko fishes for his uro cocoon and pulls out a letter…  
followed by another,  
and another,  
and another...  
The mushishi diligently extracts the absurdly large number of letters which peek out from the cocoon, but still they keep coming.

“E-e…” The mushishi utters a sigh of disbelief, and finally relief as he seems to have plucked the last letter. Trying to keep the notes in order, he starts off. The first message is from the mailman himself, an elderly man who picks empty cocoons deep in the mountains and relays messages among mushishi.

 _“Ginko-san,_  
_Please tell your lover to be a little more concise with his messages, and perhaps less explicit. I am not longer for this world, and my apprentices are both young girls._  
_Also, tell him that those ridiculous floral scents will not remain for you after his letters go through the uro-san’s passageway._  
_Best,_  
_Keizō”_

Ginko blushes with embarrassment and anticipation. _That man…_

Excitement courses through him as he gorges himself on the erotic flattery and heartfelt banter, the intellectually self-aware cadence of Adashino’s writing. Shaking with happiness, he clutches the letters to his heart. He reads them again as he sets up camp for the night and again when he wakes up in the small hours.

That night, orgasm spasms through him with a raging passion he thought to be estranged, roiling in the halo of those first days after he left the doctor.

He writes to Adashino at the first town he gets to, haikus dripping from him, all the details of his lover rushing back to his consciousness as he urges himself to put them to paper. He pledges to be back within a moon of his letter’s arrival. Indeed, he has only one more errand to do before returning, so a full moon cycle is a conservative estimate. Still, he rushes through his work, the promise burning in the back of his mind.

And now, here he is at this place of return, the sea breeze still mild in its chill, greenery still abounding, unbitten by the season.

\-------------------------------------------

Adashino slides open the door, surprise quickening his heart as he sees his friend, who beams woozily back at him. Before even putting down his pack, Ginko glomps onto the doctor, burrowing his head into the other man’s neck, breathing in that familiar musk, of moonlit nights and books and medicine, but _him_ most of all, _him, my Dashi Dashi Dashi…_

“Uhhh, Ginko-san-”

Giggling burbles from inside the main room and erupts into high-pitched whoops and chatter.  
“Ar’e~!”  
“It’s Ginko-san!”  
“Ahh yatta~! Ginko-san is so fun!”  
“Adashino-sensei, does this mean that class is out for the day?”  
“What, no! Not now!”  
“Yeah, Ginko-san can teach us stuff, too!”

Ginko retreats bashfully from the embrace and enters the house, while Adashino quiets the children and replies, “No, you shouldn’t leave yet. I mean, this is all optional anyway, so you can go as you please, but class is still in session. And I don’t know how much Ginko-san can help you all out with variables--as far as I know there are no mathematical mushi out there.”

The kids bust up at the notion of a mathematical mushi.

While they are occupied, Ginko looks up at his friend as he stretches his back, having put down his pack. “Are you running an after-school program, Adashino-sensei? How many sweets are you bribing them with?”

The doctor scoffs. “Yes, and...some. They don’t know when I’ll have something for them, so they have to come every day to find out.”

“I see. And what is it they’re learning about?”

“Oh, just some basic algebra.”

“Al-gebraa…?”

Adashino smirks at his friend for a moment before retaking his place next to a small chalkboard. “Mayumi-chan, explain algebra to Ginko-san.”

“Hai!” The girl turns to the mushishi. “Algebra is when you want to know a number, but you only know the numbers around it, so you turn the number into a letter and do arithmetic to find the number.”

Ginko scratches his head and scrunches his eyebrow, attempting to parse her words.

“Very good, Mayumi-chan. Now Ryu-kun, give an example of an algebra problem in real life.”

“Hai! So, say you have 6 fish after selling 25 fish by the eighth hour. How many fish did you catch to begin with?”

Ginko thinks for a moment and answers. “I had 31 fish at the beginning of the day.”

Adashino sniffs in amusement. “Very good, Ryu-kun. Ginko-kun--that’s correct, but that was a rhetorical problem--you didn’t have to answer.”

“Well I don’t want the kids to think I’m stupid…” Ginko retorts, slumping his shoulders as he lights a cigarette. “I never went to a proper school anyway.” The young mushishi can see that his lover is in teacher-mode, and although he finds it admirable for his friend to educate the local kids, he is unsettled by his shifting role in the moment--he is Adashino’s peer, but in this classroom he knows less than everyone else, even the kids.

“Ginko-kun, no one here thinks you’re stupid. You’re the one who gave me the idea to do this, from those science experiments you did with them in the pond.” Adashino meets Ginko’s eye, offering him a hopeful smile. “But if you want to learn some algebra with the kids, feel free. You probably have most of the arithmetic tools already from trading.”

“Oh.” Ginko quirks his mouth and awkwardly sits among the kids. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to lose in joining.”

Adashino looks at his friend kindly before returning to his didactic tone. “Shōma-kun, translate Ryu’s word problem into an algebra equation on the board.”

“Hai!”

The class carries on smoothly. Having gotten over his initial insecurity, Ginko picks up on the math pretty quickly. The kids take him through some of the topics they’ve already learned--fractions and exponents, and he soon understands what it was that Mayumi meant by replacing numbers with letters.

Adashino begins a lecture on how to use fractions in algebra equations, but Ginko is already a bit saturated and spaces out, watching his lover geek out adorably with the math, how the man’s dark eyelashes bat at his shaggy bangs, the perfection of clavicle peeking out of his yukata. He longs to bury his fingers in the man’s hair, to mouth at his collarbone.

Perhaps Adashino can tell that Ginko has had enough--or not enough, depending on one’s perspective--and lets out his junior mathletes. As they filter away, their voices fading into the distance, Ginko slinks closer to the doctor, who flits around tidying up after the kids. Only when these chores are done does Adashino allow himself to relax, turning toward the mushishi and closing the remaining distance between them.

At long last, they embrace uninterrupted, gripping each other by the hips and waist, trading mirthfully lopsided expressions. Ginko beams at his friend. “Miss me?”

Adashino chuffs and giggles convulsively, hugging the mushishi closer. “What do you think?” As his shaking calms to a purr, he adds, “Of course I did, Ginko-chan,” and nestles his forehead against the other man’s.

Ginko dives in for a kiss first, his thirst now untenable. Adashino melts into the sensation of their lips merging, folding warmly together. “Mmmmm…” Deep within the mushishi, a spark ignites--the satisfied hum emanating from the other man liquid fuel seeping through him. Ginko bucks impatiently, unable to resist the jolt shooting through him. Adashino starts laughing softly again as he perceives the needy firmness pressing up against his pelvis. “Miss _me,_ Ginko-chan?”

Ginko joins in the fitful laughter, punctuating his huffing exhales with greedy kisses along the other man’s cheek, neck, collarbone. “Mhmm.”

The doctor strokes his lover briskly on the arms, then separates himself. “I wasn’t expecting you so early… let me go prepare--I can’t wait to feel you inside me again.”

“MMmmmMMMmm…,” Ginko whines. “I wanted to have you inside though… I’ve been practicing touching myself there, but it’s not nearly as good.”

Adashino lets out an amused huff. “Well, with sufficient willpower and agility, we could do both in one go. Are you prepared?”

“No.”

“Then come with. We can take turns.” The doctor titters. “And then we can take turns again.”

“Tch.” The mushishi snorts and rolls his eyes at his friend, following after nevertheless.

\----------------------------------

They stagger back inside, stimulated nerves bristling at the chill of impending evening. To loosen up, they prepare some of the herbal tea the doctor had used with Ginko for his first time. The pair cuddle up on Adashino’s futon, each man sipping his tea, chatting topically.

“Ah, we should go to the village onsen tomorrow after the kids’ math session--that place is the one benefit of this cold gray weather.”

“Mmm…” Ginko breathes into the tea and basks in the meager steam that arises in response. “That sounds perfect.”

Adashino pokes his head up from where it rests on the other man’s chest, his body following. He beams at his companion, hair falling into his eyes. Ginko reaches down to ruffle the other man’s fringe. “Your hair’s getting long now, Dashi-chan.”

The young doctor raises one of his own hands to finger at his mop. “Yeah, I’m thinking of growing it out--I liked how it looked on you and figured I may as well try it for myself…”

Ginko smirks down at his friend, exhaling. “It’s cute.” He caresses a section of the locks, then cups the other man’s face, sipping the last of his tea down. “I think I’m ready.” Adashino follows suit with his tea, placing both empty cups out of reach. Straddling the mushishi, he lets his hands roam over the other man’s turtleneck-encased chest, ribs, latissimus dorsi. Sitting up, Ginko pulls his sweater up over his head to give his lover better access, and slips a probing hand into the other’s yukata, tracing the smooth dips of clavicle, savoring the supple skin at the neck, the taut flesh of the pectorals.

They strip slowly amidst the unfolding expeditions of their hands, mapping touches, sensitive skin tingling at curious fingers’ excavation. “So you’ve continued practicing?” the doctor murmurs.

“Mhmm. It feels good, after all,” Ginko answers, pressing his lips to the other man’s.

As they make out, their caresses grow hungrier. By the time they remove their underwear, they are already tossing about hot and heavy, spots of precum on the flung articles punctuating their need. Now pinned underneath the mushishi, Adashino reaches for the jar of lube. In desperation, he barely warms it before mashing it around Ginko’s opening and his own cock. “Ready?”

Breath quick, pulse rapid, the mushishi nods vigorously. Without further ado, his friend dips two fingers into the flexible entrance, spreading the gel around inside, teasing at the sensitive lump, causing Ginko to buck around the digits, thrusting them deeper. “Mmm, you have been practicing, koibito.” Adashino withdraws his fingers and adjusts his cock into position, letting his friend decide on the speed of his descent.

Ginko sinks along the length, gruff exhales accentuating his downward motions. He pauses as the head of Adashino’s cock begins to rub against his prostate and moves up and down slightly, gently pulsing his pelvic floor muscles, humming at the delicious friction, angling his hips to preserve it as he continues his descent. When his ass lands supplely against the other man’s hips, he catches his lover’s eyes. “Is this angle good? Should I lean forward more?”

“Mm, yeah, come forward a little though.” As Ginko does this, Adashino scoots back and sits up, leaning against the wall behind him, his torso now pressed against the other man’s. The lovers revel in the intimacy of the pose, caressing and kissing in turn, gasping out each other’s names. After some re-adjusting, Ginko sighs with pleasure, returning to the gentle up and down, squeezing and releasing around the penetration.

Although the doctor is not in a good position to thrust up into Ginko, the tight heat surrounding Adashino overwhelms him quickly. His gentle kisses along the other man’s neck grow more heated, his cool petting now a frenzied grappling. He waits until the last moment that he still retains control to withdraw.

“Ginko-chan, I’m close now. Let’s switch.”

The mushishi obliges, rising up off of the doctor’s throbbing hardness with a heaving breath. As his friend recovers from the precipice, Ginko retrieves some lube for himself and motions to take the doctor’s place against the wall. This done, he mimics Adashino’s actions, dividing the gel between himself and the other man’s opening. Adashino nods in encouragement, spurring Ginko to enter him with two slick fingers. The mushishi playfully wiggles the digits inside of his lover, spreading the lube, and then extracts them.

Adashino watches the young mushishi’s progress, and as the latter removes his fingers, he draws his gaze down, eyes prurient, grinning eagerly as he grabs the other man’s dick and wastes no time in lowering himself around it. Already excited, he shifts up and down, rotating and pulsing his muscles frenetically, taking Ginko along for the ride.

They writhe together, sweat-slick, hands scrabbling, mouths latching onto whatever parts present themselves.

Adashino begins to feel energy coiling in his core, lets it climb through him, succumbing to the headrush of the stimulation, spasming in climax without coming. After this first orgasm, he slows the pace of his body, gasping out, “How close are you? I want to get inside you again.”

“Ahhhh,” Ginko breathes out, overcome by the vibration attending Adashino’s bliss. “Getting there...pretty soon-” He takes more control of the motion, thrusting up into his lover, heat pooling within him. “Okay!”

Adashino rises off and flips Ginko onto his knees, mounting him from behind. “This okay?”

“Mm. Fuck, get in already!”

Ginko groans low as the other man penetrates him again, now pushing deeper with the change in position. He feels his ki spiraling, starting tightly from where his lover plunges in, waves of sensation intensifying, overwhelming him. He growls with the rhythm, bathing in the rush, pulsing around his lover. Amidst his spasms, he senses a hot wetness filling him up and clenches around the spent cock, relinquishing one of his supporting arms to stroke himself ardently, climaxing almost instantly. Both men collapse panting down onto the futon, luxuriating in the sweaty slick heat, minds on a wholly different plane.

\-------------------------------------

After the men finish cleaning, they lie together for a time, Ginko lighting up a mushi cigarette. Adashino watches the curls of smoke rise from the stick and his lover’s lips, how the latter wrap lushly around the paper.

“There’s a psychoactive component in those, right?”

Ginko meets his friend’s gaze. “Mhmm. I mostly don’t feel it though since I smoke them so often. Do you want to try?” He holds the roll out to the doctor.

“Hmm, okay...I have always been a little curious.” Adashino accepts the proffered cigarette and sucks in on it, immediately erupting into a coughing fit, tearing up, face red.

The mushishi plucks the joint out of his friend’s fingers and rubs him comfortingly on the back. “Oh, sorry, I forgot to warn you to take small inhales first, before the chemical starts to kick in and dilate your blood vessels.” Ginko pauses, waiting for Adashino’s convulsing body to relax before adding, “Here, maybe this will make it easier for you. Get ready to inhale.” He takes a heavy drag of his cigarette and leans over, hovering his mouth in front of his lover’s and allowing a controlled jet of smoke to pass through his parted lips.

Adashino catches on fast and pulls in the breath-damp smoke, marveling at the twice-filtered fog issuing from his own mouth. After five rounds of this, Ginko closes the distance between their mouths to snog lazily. Pulling apart for a moment, he purrs, “Feel it yet?”

Adashino giggles into his friend’s mouth. “I don’t know...maybe?” he responds coquettishly. “I’ve heard some people who smoke this gain the ability to see mushi when they can’t normally. Do you think that will happen?”

“Pfft,” Ginko snickers, “that’d be the psychoactive effects, koibito. Do you think you see any mushi?”

“No, but-” Adashino smiles and blinks lazily, “my head feels sort of woozy.” The doctor looks around the room, double-checking for any glowing insects, gauging how his perception has changed. “And my nerves feel stimulated, beyond how they already felt after release.”

“Mm, yeah, it definitely intensifies the afterglow.” Ginko takes another drag and leans to offer more to his lover, who takes it gladly and folds again into a soft kiss. “Does it feel good?”

Adashino grins warmly as he snuggles up against the other man, pressing lips gently along Ginko’s jaw. “Yes,” he hums into his friend’s ear before nestling his face into that yielding place between head and neck and shoulder. Ginko puffs on the last bits of the mushi cigarette before fully joining his friend, entwining the other man with both arms and legs, resting his head on the doctor’s shaggy crown, allowing the peace to well up inside him.

_I could stay like this forever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mushi tobacco is weed confirmed
> 
> Deleted scene: Adashino breaks the peaceful moment to try and explain calculus to Ginko, who humors him but inwardly vows to never get Adashino high again.


	7. Fulfillment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter... I think this makes the most sense pacing-wise/keeping each chapter focused on a specific theme.
> 
> CW: explicit sex

It happens the second morning after Ginko’s arrival.

Not a day passes before the pair fall into an easy domestic rhythm--after Adashino’s necessary errands around town and a healthy session of fooling around in the storage shed, the duo plan and execute a mushi-themed math lesson for the kids, and then unwind at the local onsen, thick veils of steam excusing their public necking.

Supine and sated on the futon, basking coolly in the other man’s heat, Ginko decides not to sweat how attached he has become to the doctor--as long as he stays no longer than a week, as long as he keeps to that hard deadline, what does it matter what he does or how he feels while he’s here?

The next day the young mushishi wakes with ample time before sunrise. Rising and cracking his back, he gazes affectionately at the doctor, who is still sound asleep, drooling on the shared bed. His better judgment compels him to refrain from reaching back down to ruffle the other man’s hair, electing instead to clean up and prepare breakfast.

The sky is still a deep indigo when he comes back to bed with tea and rice, the doctor only just stirring. Stooping to put down the tray, Ginko presses a kiss to his lover’s forehead. “Sleep well?”

Sitting up, Adashino digs the crust from his eyes and smiles up at his companion. “Mm, yeah. I think I tend to sleep better with you around.”

“Really? But you can’t sleep when I hold you.”

“True, but your proximity is comforting nevertheless.”

Ginko beams down and tackles the other man, clinging to him eagerly and peppering his face with kisses. Smirking down at the keen morning erection nudging against his thigh, the mushishi replies, “Mm, I can see how _comfortable_ you are right now. But what would you prefer right now, Dashi-kun, my mere proximity or-” He cups the bulge in the blanket, caressing it firmly, a puckish grin stealing across his face. “Would you rather be held?”

“Well I’m not trying to go to sleep now, so the latter please, if you don’t mind.” The young doctor smirks up at his companion, flushed with anticipation, watching the man press plush lips along his neck and down his torso. During the storm of his last visit, Ginko had developed a preferred method of banishing the fog of sleep from his friend’s mind, though perhaps replacing it with a fog of another sort.

It happens during this morning routine.

Ginko has gained skill at pleasing his lover, skill that comes only from repetition, learning the secrets and sensitivities of the other man’s body, the types of touch that drive him mad. So it is that as he massages _that spot_ on the doctor’s inner thigh, gently digging fingers curled perfectly into the perineum, bobbing his head, mouthing in _just that way,_ so it is that a nonsensical diatribe of oaths and obscenities stream gasping from the doctor. The frenzy of words spurs Ginko on--he relishes in rendering the other man helpless, writhing. Adashino weaves his fingers into the other man’s hair, panting.

“Ahh, Ginko… ahhh… ai shiteru, mm, kuso--ah! Ai shiteru, Ginko-chan.”

The young mushishi continues with his ministrations, startled but ultimately unfazed by the brash declaration in the heat of the moment.

It happens now.

Adashino can feel himself teetering on the edge, feels rumbling about him like the tossing aches of an empty stomach that is moments from being filled, spasms spelling danger, the air popping and fracturing around him. All of a sudden his vision is bathed in emerald, a haze that cuts the apprehension, fills him with profound comfort and satisfaction. The green is a tidal wave pummeling, engulfing him in its frenzied hunger. Awash in sensation, he barely takes notice as he spills abundant seed into the other man’s mouth.

The mushishi is at first too engrossed in his work to notice the tremors, the hunger, the midori haze cast over his brain, but as he takes in his lover’s release, sucking voraciously, he is struck by its taste--the most luscious, delectable flavors come to mind--wholesomely sweet roasted yam, the intoxicating scent of simmering pork fat, savory dark tamari, the pure, thick nourishment of fried rice noodles. He swallows it down greedily, drinking in the rich umami, the finest dashi--  
But--  
_not my Dashi._

As the jism slides down his throat, it dawns on him that semen does not taste like any of those things, that his perception is being altered. He becomes aware now of the green fog clouding his sight. His eye widens. “Oh.”

Lifting off of the other man, he questions, voice like deep molasses, “Dashi-chan, how do you feel right now?”

His lover hums drowsily. “Ah, amazing… for a moment everything seemed bathed in green,” he mumbles low, before adding, “Sugoi, Ginko-chan! You’ve gotten really good at this--making me see colors even! But- wh-what’s wrong with our voices?”

Ginko gets up, the languid digestion of the psychic mushi slowing his motions, blunting his sense of urgency. He attempts to adjust to the sensation and recenter himself, but it is a powerful blast, and he is still reeling from the taste. He muses that Adashino is probably even worse off, with the hormonal rush of orgasm subduing him on top of the feeding mushi. _But he doesn’t see it anymore, at least._

“Adashino--the jishin-taberu...it’s feeding right now. That means that elsewhere--we have no way of knowing exactly where--there is an earthquake in progress. Do you have any means of warning the village of a possible tsunami?”

The doctor becomes dissociatively aware of the situation’s criticality and rises with nontrivial effort--he feels a syrupy weight clinging to his limbs, opposing any motion. “Yes--a bell outside--but it will be hard to get there with the air being all… sticky. I’m not even sure that a bell will work in the mushi’s sphere of influence.”

Ginko nods sluggishly. “The jishin-taberu slows down motion as it digests--that’s what we’re feeling right now. I don’t know that we’ll have time to wait for it to be over--if the earthquake is happening out at sea the tidal wave won’t slow down until it gets close, and by then it’d be too late.”

The men struggle through the room together, wrapping a blanket around themselves to preserve their modesty, as putting their clothes on would be far too arduous a task in the thick green miasma. After much struggle, the pair make their way to the weighted pulley contraption. Adashino throws his whole body into a sharp tug at one of the ropes, hoping for the best.

A low tone blares, its drone reverberating through the haze. Encouraged, the doctor yanks the rope down again and again. After a few goes, he crumples against the mushishi, panting. “Do you think that’s enough? People probably heard it, but they may not recognize it as the disaster bell.”

Ginko wraps a supporting arm around his friend and kisses his temple. “It’ll have to be, Dashi-kun. Let’s go back inside and put clothes on before someone comes up the hill and asks what’s going on.”

The pair amble back inside and work their clothes on, coordination wonky, toppling exhausted onto the futon when they finish.

Adashino turns his attention to the hitherto ignored tray of tea and rice and reaches for his lukewarm cup, relishing intently in the enhanced sensation of drinking, quenching, slaking. The nutty and earthy tones of the tea subdue him completely. He sinks down, barely remembering in his bliss to put the cup upright on the ground.

Ginko watches his lover and chuckles. “You don’t even want to know what your cum tasted like under the jishin-taberu’s influence.”

Adashino only hums in response, still rapt.

The mushishi considers the tray. “It looks like eating will be quite the journey--I’d better first send a letter to Tanyuu-san so she knows I’m alive.” He pauses, knowing Adashino will not like the next part. “I’ll need to go and help in the affected areas as soon as this is over.” Before his friend has time to react, Ginko is up and on his way to his pack.

The young doctor feels gradually more bereft as the absence next to him cools, the reality of his companion’s words sinking in. He indiscriminately flails a hand to the tray, messily scooping a handful of rice and conveying the starch to his mouth, sighing in pleasure as emerald fulfillment keels through him, banishing the incipient grief and disappointment.

As he swallows the last of the sticky rice on his hand, he hears vague cursing groans from the main room and compels himself to get up from the sated green stupor and join his friend.

“What’s wrong?”

Ginko raises his head from his frustrated labor to the man in the doorway. “I can’t write in this…” He punctuates his words with several futile jerking motions of his wrist, the thick fog impeding fine movement.

“So don’t. It won’t hurt to wait until after the quake is over to find out your assignment.”

The mushishi raises an eyebrow, clocking the grains of rice stuck to the other man’s lips. Letting out a grumbling sigh, he assents and returns with his companion to the futon. The latter dedicates himself to calming his lover, kneading the muscles that remain tense even in the green haze. Softening his caresses, Adashino peers thoughtfully into Ginko’s eye, savoring his friend’s presence. “Ginko~”

The mushishi subdues the intensity of his distant gaze, mellowing as he refocuses. He leans in to kiss the concerned doctor’s lips, darting his tongue out to scoop up the grains of rice mashed against the other man’s lips, each kernel a pop of euphoria. The men find their mouths irresistible in the mushi’s haze, tonguing desperately, consuming each other. They begin a game in which one dips his tongue into the rice and the other mouths around the muscle, sucking the rice into his own watering mouth.

Little by little, the lovers forget themselves, the outside world, everything beyond the sensual give and take.

Little by little, the thick midori clears from the air, the men’s play growing empty and all too quick. Both ache for the fullness that had existed between them just moments ago, but neither openly expresses the dissatisfaction, for fear of it worsening should the words be spoken aloud.

Morning light casts long shadows on the spare grains left in their bowls, throwing their figures into still sharper relief. Primal necessity becomes stubbornness, becomes greed, as they scramble for the last kernels of ecstasy.

\-----------------------------------------

The air is crisp and clear as Ginko crosses the threshold of the doctor’s home, hunching slightly under the weight of his pack. Adashino bids him goodbye, swallowing back the sullen disappointment attending his friend’s early departure.

Thoughts buzz in the doctor’s mind like mosquitoes sapping away any stray vestige of afterglow. One in particular refuses banishment, ekes its way ruthlessly into his prefrontal cortex..

“Uhh… Ginko…” He avoids eye contact, dread clenching at his throat.

The mushishi eyes him. “Yeah?”

“...”

“Adashino?”

“...About what I said… In the moment, right when the jishin-taberu started feeding-”

Ginko half-smirks. “Oh, that.”

Adashino clutches his hands together, nervous. “I- I mean… you know, it was an intense moment, and I-”

Ginko cuts him off, pulling the man into a tight embrace. “It’s okay. Dai suki da yo, Adashino-chan.” He punctuates his words with a kiss to his friend’s forehead before breaking off, musing, “I’ll be back before you know it,” and making his way up the path into the forest.

Adashino takes a moment to look up, watch his lover leaving. Clarity rushes through him in that instant, and he dashes after the mushishi, glomping onto him. Clutching the other man’s head and peering audaciously into his eye, words burst aflame from his lungs.

“Dai suki da yo too!  
_...Ginko-chan.”_

The mushishi smiles warmly at him. They nuzzle together before parting, kisses honeyed and light.

For a moment, nothing happens but warm skin pressing, a lush bubble barricading them from the brightness and chill of dawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn't envision having an food fetish chapter but wellp here we are
> 
> Also I am clearly a fan of the mushi-as-drugs motif from the show.
> 
> Oh, oh, oh, also: I'm lining up events in my fanfic with actual historical events. The earthquake that is happening is the Echigo Sanjo earthquake of 1828: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ptmps1907/4/15/4_15_288/_pdf


	8. Open up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter contains a flashback to Adashino's first encounter with a client (no explicit sex or anything like that). I intend for this to be a window into his abuse-traumatized sixteen-year-old mind, how he negotiates his own power and lack thereof--hopefully it doesn't come off as exploitative.

The tsunami doesn’t come.

Adashino hurries down the southward trek to his mother and father’s home, unsure how far his shell of protection reached, or moreover where the earthquake hit.

His parents open their door, startled at their son’s sudden and disheveled appearance. They have little time to react before he bursts out, “To-san, ka-san, have you felt anything out of the ordinary this morning?”

The middle-aged couple peer at each other briefly before Adashino’s father speaks up. “Ahh, not really. There was an odd low tone that seemed to come from your village, and your mother said she could hear distant rumbling, but I don’t think anything happened around here.”

“Yokatta…” the doctor starts, blood still pumping fast from the exertion of rushing over, “I was with my mushishi friend Ginko when the earthquake happened--he gave me a special mushi that consumes earthquake tremors and it activated this morning, but it changed the environment around us, so we were unsure where a quake may have happened.”

“Oh, was that mushi the source of the droning sound?”

“Not quite--Ginko warned me that a tsunami might come before the mushi was done eating, so we hurried outside to ring the disaster bell. The mushi slows down motion, which is why the sound was so low.”

The physician’s parents again exchange glances--this time his mother replies. “Well, we’re glad you’re safe. Are you hungry? It looks like you ran over here. Let me cook up some fish and rice, Shino-kun.”

Adashino catches up his breath and assents. “Okay…”

His mother grabs his arm. “Well don’t think you’re going to get out of helping. You’re old enough.”

“Hai,” he says sheepishly, following her to the cooking area.

“Your father was just about to make a batch of kimchi. Help him clean the cabbage and cut the turnips.”

“Hai!” Adashino exerts more energy into his reply now, donning with no further hesitation the role of dutiful son. His mother hands him a cabbage before continuing. “You’ve mentioned this mushishi before, though you haven’t talked about other ones beyond what they brought you.” A question seems implicit in her words, an irking suspicion.

Adashino is somewhat taken aback, but keeps his cool. “He’s a good friend of mine. Sometimes he visits for a few days and we share stories and learning.”

His mother eyes him skeptically as she scrapes at a fish. She then shoots a look to her husband, who sits next to the doctor, gazing at his work intently, unwilling to join the discourse. Adashino coughs, adding, “Yesterday we made a special mushi-themed math class for some of the kids in town. He’s really good with them. He… has a charm I can’t quite manage on my own.” The doctor can hear his father exhaling next to him.

His mother furrows her brows. “That’s nice, Adashino-kun.” She shifts her gaze to the side as she makes a final poke at her son’s privacy. “So… is there someone special in your life?” _He hasn’t been receptive to any of our suggestions...We can’t force him since we gave him up to the old doctor, but…_ “You know how your father and I want grandchildren, Shino-kun.”

Adashino twinges slightly, tensing as he replies facedown, “I know, ka-san. Hontō ni gomen ne.”

His mother grunts in response, powerless and disappointed. The three continue preparing food in the airtight silence that follows. Even as he enjoys the nourishment and flavor of his mother’s cooking, even though she prods no further into his personal life, allowing him to wax poetic about mathematics for a longer-than-socially acceptable interval, the initial jolt of embarrassment and guilt has him shaken--he barely weathers the remainder of their interaction.

Despite the concern for his family which motivated his rapid midday journey, Adashino is glad to return to his village, his collection, his futon that still smells of mushi tobacco and sex.

\--------------------------------------

He tried to love her as he ought to.

In those cloudy months after his master’s death Adashino made a show of wandering aimlessly down the margins of village paths, chopping his hair with reckless inconsistency, practicing rebellion that could only be understood from the outside as profound grief.

Still, he bowed to his weekly obligation to take a short walk with his betrothed. He liked the girl well enough, but, well… _not well enough._ They bonded sometimes over romantic novels, but it was in these moments he felt most guilty, knowing that he was the unkind bulwark keeping Toshiko-chan from her own beloved. Still, despite the imposing turrets, moats, and sinkholes with which he guarded his inner self, the girl’s presence grew unthreatening, comfortable even.

“Your apologies, Adashino-sensei, but does it smell funny to you out by the latrine? More than usual I mean…”

“Mmm, yeah. I should have a specialist look at it, but I’m stumped myself as to the cause.”

“What about the little room next to the toilet? Maybe an animal wandered in and died.”

“No, I’ve checked. Gomen ne, Toshiko-san, I suppose I’ve gotten used to it and forgot that others might find it repulsive.” In this, Adashino told only a half truth--he had gotten used to it, but he never ceased to find the place repulsive. Beyond the rotten odor, he always felt a certain background, low-grade dread whenever he neared the elder physician’s seppuku room.

Now, it was not as though his master committed suicide, let alone ritual suicide. The man’s death was not without bodily pain, but it was undeniably natural, a cancer of the liver. But Adashino had other unpleasant associations with that stall, and for him, the disquiet, perhaps even the smell of decay, had preceded the old man’s death by some time.

“You miss him a lot, don’t you?” Toshiko wished to understand the affliction vexing the doctor’s mien, wished to crack him open and _feel_ something for the young man.

Adashino peered at her quizzically, then cast his face down. “I guess.”

The girl rushed around and clutched his shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. “No, Adashino-san. Stop with vague answers like that. We are to be married and I won’t be able to stand it if you’re always like this! What do you mean, ‘I guess?’!”

The doctor shivered under her grasp, eyes wide with surprise and fear. “I-ah- kuso…” He ducked his head back down at that, cutting off their eye contact.

Toshiko softened her voice in response, mellowed her grip. “I’m sorry, I just want to know what you really think. I want to know your feelings, Adashino-sensei.”

Adashino furrowed his brow and gazed back up at her, eyes shining with vulnerability. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry, Toshiko-san. I guess I’m just still afrai-” She squeezed him in support at his hesitation, encouraging him to continue. “I’m still afraid of him.” He said these words with sincere gravity, underlied by a faltering tremor, the voice of a scared boy underneath all the layers of protection.

Snorting, the girl dropped her arms and met him with a sardonic smile. “Adashino-san! Don’t you know?”

He stared at her, eyes blank with confusion. “What don’t I know?”

“We were all scared of him--all us kids! And our parents didn’t like him either--they would put off appointments that way. It’s really quite unfitting for a doctor to be a figure of disdain in a community--it can lead to preventable deaths and discomforts, don’t you think?”

“Y-yeah. I don’t want to be like that, that’s for sure.”

“Then don’t.” She shot the young doctor a conciliatory smile, which he returned weakly. “I don’t think you’re like him, in any case. You might avoid company, but not in a snooty way. You’re weird, but never unkind.”

“Thanks, Toshiko-san.”

“And who even has a _seppuku_ room around here?? He was _a doctor._ ” She gestured her arms emphatically with her words, drawing out a shrieking giggle from the boy. Adashino tried to stifle his laughter behind his hands, but lost himself, arms falling boneless and shaking with gleeful convulsions.

Wiping tears from his eyes, the young physician smiled genuinely at his betrothed. “Toshiko-san, you are so good to me.” The girl lit up at this, sensing a connection forming. “...But I don’t think I would be so good to you.”

“What makes you say that?”

Adashino avoided eye contact as he searched for honest words, the full reality of his situation materializing before him only then, hearing them aloud.  
“I-  
“I don’t think-  
“I wouldn’t be able-  
“I can’t do as a husband ought to do for his wife...  
“...I just can’t feel that way for any woman. And you love Hiroki, not me! Why should it be any different for you? It’s not fair. I don’t know what to do but I want it all to work out the right way.”

Toshiko followed his gaze, tried to catch his eyes amidst all the candor. “Can you talk to your parents about it? What if-- ...you were too sick with grief to be married?” She looked down, adding, “I… hoped for that sometimes, that that may have been the case,” before angling her face back up, eyes hopeful.

The young doctor met her gaze, dumbfounded. _I hadn’t considered that possiblity..._

\---------------------------------------------

In those first weeks of winter following Ginko’s sudden departure, Adashino devotes himself to work--beyond his usual physician visits and medicine production, he spends all his time planning lessons for the kids and poring over a Dutch book on optics as well as a domestically-authored engineering text applying the scientific theories of the former. Inspired, he reaches out to a glassmith from around a mountain to the south. Their work is slow, what with the distance and the time it takes for one to abandon all else and make a trip over, but in their collaboration the pair develop a unique, queer bond of friendship.

One cool midwinter day when the glassblower makes the trip to Adashino’s village, the latter is chatting with Toshiko in his house. The village woman teaches reading, writing, and basic arithmetic in the village terakoya and for the past week has been demonstrating her curriculum to the doctor, who has promised to substitute for her during the weeks after she gives birth. Lately, their conversation takes more twists and turns than strictly necessary communication. Dimly, Adashino recalls the walks they once took together, and gradually begins to recognize the effort she had put into cracking him open, how she has continued to be concerned for him over the years.

“Was there something burning in the seppuku room?” she asks, returning from the outhouse.

Adashino looks up from the scroll Toshiko is having some of the more advanced students read. He falters slightly, but carries on, knowing that the schoolteacher will press if he willfully hides anything. “Oh, yeah, it’s to appease a mushi that lives in the room. The same one that used to make the area around there smell so foul.”

“Oh! I didn’t know you had a pet mushi! Does Ginko-san know about it?”

The doctor diverts his gaze back down. “He does not. And it’s not a pet.”

“How did it get there?”

“My master lured it there.” _With a nontrivial role on my part,_ his mind supplies bitterly.

“How? Why?”

Adashino doesn’t reply, desperate for the conversation to change topic.

Toshiko tries to meet his gaze, unwilling to drop the point. “Adashino-sensei?”

The doctor huffs in exasperation, but answers frankly, “It appeared because he _hurt_ me in that room.” Adashino feels a wave of déjà vu--the sudden rush of levity that came with recognizing self-truths those 7 years ago, and moreover understanding the full gravity of his words only as they emerged fully-formed from his throat--it all comes crashing through him again. His tear ducts nearly betray him, but he only just manages a vice grip on his composure. “Could we talk about something else please?”

Toshiko beams at the physician, eyes wide with sympathy. “Yes, of course, Adashino-sensei.”

The stilted silence that follows is broken by two merciful raps at the door. Adashino brightens, anticipation swallowing back the dread and shame of his memories.

“Oh, that’ll be Emi-san, the glassmith to the south. You should stick around for this, Toshiko-san--we can show you what we’ve been working on.”

“Ohh, you’ve been designing glass works?”

Adashino replies as he hurries to the door, “More or less, but with a purpose. You’ll see--or moreover I’ll see, hopefully!” He shoots her a congenial grin before turning to open the door. The woman who enters is tall, looming over the doctor, and wears her long hair in a loose bun atop her crown, shorter locks in front bordering her face. Elaborate but tasteful patterns of color adorn her thick winter kimono. Toshiko peers at the pair across the room, enamored by the woman’s willowy glamor.

The glassblower bows upon entering, stating her business. “It’s good to see you again, Adashino-sensei. I have some prototypes based on your specs.” The schoolteacher is surprised by the woman’s voice--although it is pitched high and has a feminine cadence, it seems rooted in a gravelly tenor, lacking the sonorous ring of most women’s voices. If Toshiko didn’t know better, she’d say… _Well, it’s none of my business._

Upon seeing the other young woman in the room, Emi self-consciously pitches her voice up further to a thin falsetto. “Ah, I see you have company, Adashino-sensei.”

“Good company, I assure you, Emi-san. This is Toshiko-san, the teacher at our town’s terakoya. She’s preparing me to take over her duties for a couple months after she gives birth.”

Toshiko rises and bows to the craftswoman. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emi-san.”

Emi bows in turn. “Likewise.” She maintains the uncertain high pitch despite her relative trust in the doctor’s judgment.

“So you’ve been working with the doctor on some glass pieces? What are they for?”

The tall woman smiles and slips a gloved hand into her bag, removing an ornately carved box, beckoning the other woman to draw closer and peer into its contents. Opening the lid, she carefully extracts a thin disk of glass from a silk-lined slot, clasping daintily its beveled circumference between thumb and forefinger. “This is a lens. It’s curved in just a way so that someone with a particular visual impairment could hold it up to their eye and see clearly.”

“Oohh! How interesting… could I try it?”

“Mm,” the glassmith nods, “But try not to smudge the surface.”

Toshiko accepts the disk and holds it to one eye, then another. “Oh, strange, it warps everything, like I’m seeing through water.” She hands it back to the craftswoman. “Clearly this isn’t for me.” Chuckling, she adds, “But I know a nearsighted doctor who’d love to get his hands on something like this.”

Indeed, Adashino is eager to try out the monocles, bearing in on the box of lenses.

“I’ve ordered them according to intensity of the curvature. I’m still getting used to the level of precision these require, though.”

As Adashino engrosses himself with trying on different disks, Toshiko continues chatting with the woman from over the southern mountain. “So you’re just starting with this sort of technical stuff? What’s your specialty?”

The glassblower replies warmly, watching with amusement the doctor’s reactions to her lenses. “I have most experience making vessels, but lately I have been intrigued by these more scientific fabrications. My father, who taught me glassblowing, specialized in this sort of work, and used to trade with Adashino-sensei’s old master. My father died before I could become proficient at this skill, though, so I’ve had to teach it to myself to some extent.”

Adashino pipes up amidst his excitement. “Her father made the lenses in my microscope. It’s an item I cherish.”

The village schoolteacher gapes bright-eyed at the pair’s back-and-forth as they engage in shop-talk, the doctor retrieving his books, going on about curvature and focal points, the glassmith sketching diagrams in response. Every now and then Toshiko interrupts them, asking what particular repeated words mean.

This technical interlude segues gracefully into more inclusive conversation after the two engineers conclude their game plan for the doctor’s monocle and settle down with glasses of warm ocha-wari--Toshiko curls in with a steaming mug of kukicha across from the craftswoman. Adashino places a dish of adzuki-filled mochi in the middle of the circle before reposing. Upon sitting he turns to the glassblower, inquiring, “How has business been lately? Do you have any other interesting commissions?”

“Mm, it’s enough to live on and maintain my equipment, but my work is still compared unfavorably to my father’s. Once I get better at some of this precision work, though, I suspect there will be an uptick. But this is the main creative work I’ve been doing lately--for the most part people just want jars.”

“So you have enough to feed your kids? If you need any help, please let me know.”

The older woman smiles. “Thank you for your concern, Adashino-sensei, but I’m fine. Yui’s growing to be a smart young girl, and Jinichi’s just learned to talk--my wife certainly has her hands full.” She glances at the younger woman, gauging her reaction to the revealed information.

Toshiko is confused, curious, but tries to not offend the craftswoman with any outward displays of bewilderment. Still, she must know, and decides to frame her intrusion with flattery. “How is it that a woman so dainty and beguiling as yourself has a wife? I’m not such a fool to think that intimacy is only shared between women and men”--she shifts her eyes to the doctor with these words--”but I’ve never heard of homosexual _marriages._ ”

Emi smirks sidelong, judging the other woman’s polite enough question, hesitating. “Well, for the longest time other people labored under the absurd impression that I was a boy. I suppose I let it go on for so long that they married me off to a woman!” She lets out a bubble of rehearsed laughter to soften the impact of her words.

The schoolteacher eyes the other woman warmly. “I think I understand now.”

Meandering away from the spotlight of interrogation, the glassmith carries on, “But ‘dainty and beguiling,’ eh?” She removes the pin holding her hair up in back, allowing raven locks to spill to her waist. Shooting a look at the other woman that is all dark eyelashes and twinkling flirtation, sipping her drink, she adds, “Be careful flattering me like that, young lady. I do love my wife.”

Adashino watches the schoolteacher sputter, and swats at Emi. “Oh, stop!”

Toshiko manages the blushing words, “AND I LOVE MY HUSBAND,” before swiping a large piece of mochi from the dish set before her and hiding half her face in eating.

Satisfied with herself, Emi also retrieves a rice cake and puckishly munches on the soft dough. Letting a slight grimace escape her, she turns to the doctor. “Not very sweet, are they? Are you being stingy with sugar for the sake of our health, Adashino-sensei?”

The young doctor giggles, covering his smile with a hand. Turning to Emi, he answers, “Not exactly…” then cants to Toshiko. “Ginko scolded me for using sugar what with all the injustice that’s happening to the sugarcane-farming peasants of the Ryukyu islands, so I’ve been trying to cut back.”

Emi blinks. “Ginko?”

Toshiko explains, “Ginko-san is Adashino-sensei’s very-good friend. He’s a traveling mushishi.”

The older woman grins at the doctor, elbowing him with the words, “Hey, you didn’t tell me you had a ‘very-good friend’, Adashino-sensei.”

Adashino sits, smiling face resting flushed in his hands, eyes lowered in reminiscence. “Yeah, he really is something.” He drinks from his glass, basking in the warmth that now suffuses his memory.

It is all Toshiko can do to keep from squealing as she bears witness to Adashino’s lightheaded, lovestruck mien. “Oh, Adashino-san, it’s so good to see you happy!”

“A traveling mushishi, eh? What does he look like?”

Toshiko supplies, “Oh he’s very distinctive-looking--he has white hair despite being young, and a single green eye despite not being a foreigner.”

“Ah, I’ve seen him. He seemed--well I suppose I didn’t really speak to him--he just passed through. But he seemed nice, I think.” The craftswoman pauses, playing out to herself how the doctor might react to her words. “I’ll admit feeling some apprehension hearing that your special one is a wanderer--several travelers--merchants _and_ mushishi--have been quite rude to me. Two in particular were under the impression by the way I dress that I am a whore. One man, when I corrected his presumption, started telling me lies of his conquests, saying he had once transformed a virtuous doctor into a painted tart.” She glances briefly at the young doctor as she quotes the bawdy merchant, trying not to affect suspicion.

Adashino blanches at these words, downing the rest of his drink and getting up to combine more green tea, umeshu, and shōchū.

Meanwhile, Toshiko responds, “Oh, that’s awful. I’ve never experienced anything like that myself--I’m sorry you have to deal with such rudeness.”

The older woman sighs, finishing her own first drink, signaling the doctor to bring a full second round, all the while eyeing the course of his startled reaction. She takes a moment to compose her response to Toshiko’s sympathy before speaking. “Me too. I didn’t let it on earlier, but... it does affect business. Most people just regard me as a harmless eccentric, but there are those that refuse to accept me as I am. I’ve had to put my little brother in charge of negotiations with outsiders to try to mitigate the effect. As a result, it’ll be awhile before he masters the craft.” She twists her lips and looks into the distance, pausing only to accept the drink from the doctor with congenial gratitude. “But my brother is kind. He always respected me when we were kids, and understands me now. My wife, too, helped me through it all. I only wish my father could have known…”

“I’m sure he would be proud of your hard work at the very least,” Toshiko supplies.

Emi shifts her gaze down to the side. “Maybe so.” Coughing, she returns, “But anyway, I’m happy for you, Adashino-sensei. I hope he’s good to you.”

The doctor grins back. “He is.”

Pausing in consideration, she replies, turning toward the doctor but avoiding his eyes, “So I had a feeling... but now that I know, was it…?”

Adashino freezes.

“Was it you?”

Adashino tenses, but submits, nodding, drink plying him to reveal his secrets.

“I don’t blame you, you know… not for the unwelcome advances of a cruising merchant. Nor do I blame the kabuki actors of the floating world, when people think I am just putting on an act. But why do you do it? It’s not like you need the money as a doctor, and you’re not like me...are you?”

It gradually dawns on Toshiko what the craftswoman is referring to. She gapes in disbelief at the doctor.

“No, no.. It’s the books. And the interesting objects. My medical practice affords me enough to live comfortably, but not to nourish my mind and curiosity.” Adashino shrugs with mock aplomb, hoping to keep the topic from progressing further.

Toshiko butts in, questions spilling into her mind faster than her lips can muster. “Wait, are you saying…?”

The doctor sighs. “I dress up in exchange for exotic items, Toshiko-san. For them it’s a night of pleasure--for me years of pleasure derived from learning and imagination...and sometimes also a night of mutual pleasure, however unintended by the other party.”

“Wow. I never realized it was like that. Your neighbors mentioned sometimes hearing rutting noises coming from your house when certain merchants came by, but I always thought you did that because you wanted to… Is this why you started playing the shamisen last year, to increase your value? Is that why you and Ginko-san were being weird when talking about the enchanted shamisen? Does Ginko-san even know???”

Adashino sniffs. “Of course Ginko knows. I talk to him about everything.”

“Not about the mushi in the seppuku room.” The village woman blurts this out before considering her words.

“It… never came up. But… he knows about the other stuff--about my master.”

Emi sips at the ocha-wari genteelly, curious about what the other two are referring to, but, noticing that the doctor is becoming upset, resolves to leave the exchange unremarked-upon. Instead, she diverts the conversation to safer territory. “What about a shamisen? Can you play, Adashino-sensei?”

“Well, maybe a little bit.”

Toshiko takes the bait. “Ahh you should bring out the special shamisen, Adashino-sensei~!”

Adashino submits, hoping the conversation keeps to the musical instrument. “I could bring out the shamisen if you want to try it. Actually, you may be able to play it.” After watching the schoolteacher’s eyes sparkle with anticipation, he glances at Emi. “You should definitely be able to play it.”

“What do you mean by that? I don’t know how to play the shamisen.” Folding her arms, she attempts to parse the mischievous glint in the doctor’s visage. “Unless- oh, wait, I’ve heard of this--from you! You didn’t tell me you _had_ it!”

Adashino breaks into a half grin, sipping his drink. “I’m just full of surprises tonight.”

Toshiko vibrates with the sheer excitement. “Adashino-san will you show us how you dress up when you’re with the merchants?! Oh! You should dress up for the next festival! I bet the kids will get a kick out of it!”

The doctor’s eyes grow to saucers with alarm. “Please Toshiko-san, don’t tell the whole village what I’ve conveyed to you. I don’t exactly aim to broadcast my licentiousness.” Seeing the schoolteacher’s face cloud, he decides to make a compromise. “But, if you want, I could dress up for the two of you.”

Toshiko whoops victoriously and Emi lights up, intrigued. “I cannot wait to see this, Adashino-sensei.”

Striding across the room with a tipsy bounce, the physician makes a sudden about face, swiveling into a theatrical pose with melodramatic flair. “You’ll have to, darling.” He slides a hand haughtily below his chin. “True beauty takes time.” At this, he slips into his room, from which the sounds of drawers opening and closing promptly emanate.

In the meantime, the two women discuss children existing and imminent, Toshiko posing questions about the challenges she might expect, Emi offering advice based on her own experience.

“...So yeah, soaking the fingers in vinegar did the tri-”

Emi is interrupted by the sliding sound of an opening door and the dramatic -thworp- of a fan unfurling.

Adashino emerges, face powdered, eyes outlined black, lips cherry-red. His lengthening forelocks are pinned back by a bejeweled comb, letting the dark hair in back hang languidly about his neck, brushing against the collar of a kimono bedecked in a garish floral print.

Both women applaud the doctor as he struts about in the ostentatious garb, preening in the new identity cast about him. He breaks character only as he realizes, “Oh, kuso! I forgot to first fetch the shamisen, but I don’t want to go outside dressed like this.” He giggles. “My neighbors would think I have a prostitute at my house.” He grins cheekily at the women before wholly shucking off the persona that had momentarily tagged along with the visage. Self conscious, he raises his arms appraisingly, wide sleeves of the kimono gliding in their wake. “Well, this is what it looks like, anyways.”

“You look beautiful, Adashino-sensei.”

“Yeah!”

They pass the remainder of the day with markedly more idle chatter, avoiding any hint of heavier discussion, speaking instead upon the novels the three had read in their adolescence, laughing at the cloying and tragic narratives that had captivated their youth. Periodically, the dolled-up physician slips back into the extravagant character he walked into the room with, but for the most part, he is himself behind the make-up.

As night begins to fall, Adashino sets up a spare futon for Emi in the living room and Toshiko bids the other two farewell, returning to her minka in the village, pondering all the way back what all she will tell her husband.

As the doctor lies awake in bed, he waffles between anxiety over having revealed so much and the sincere, warm trust that comes with growing closer to people. Fortunately, the latter wins out, and content, he drifts into a peaceful slumber.

\----------------------------------------------------

“Wow, I had always hoped to obtain this text in its original language. How much?” Without his master to curb his enthusiasm, the young doctor was unused to bargaining, unwisely emphasizing his desire for the book.

“Ah, well if you like this one, I have another foreign text in the back here.” Rummaging into the back of his pack, the merchant plucked out a book, handling it sensuously. Reading its title to the 16-year-old, he watched the boy’s wonderment, enjoying the hold he had on the unblemished youth.

Adashino was enthralled with this glimpse into the world outside the two small fishing villages he had lived his entire life. As the merchant moved onto domestic works, the young physician gawked at the ukiyo-e, the lush, sensual floating world of the city.

“Never seen this sort of thing, eh? Let me show you something really special.” The trader unrolled a bawdy scroll depicting two women caressing each other’s pale breasts, one with a hand curled deep into the other.

The boys’ eyes grew wide but remained un-titillated.

Ever-perceptive, the merchant reached for another print. “Or is this more your speed?” The second picture featured two men kissing, a wakashu and his lover. The older man scrutinized the young doctor, how his pupils dilated, blood hurtling to his cheeks. Cracking a smile, he ogled the raw signs of desire on the boy’s countenance. “You like that, eh?”

Adashino didn’t respond, only kept staring, rapt. His nerves stood on end as the older man penetrated his personal space, brushing the back of his hand along the boy’s flushed cheek.

“I don’t think you can afford those two books on your own, not for the assorted medicine you offer. But I think I know another way…”

Adashino gaped at the man across from him, his sunburnt face and rough, prurient demeanor. He wavered for a moment, inwardly cringing as he imagined the punishment even going as far as he had would have wreaked in the past. Taking a deep breath, the young doctor repeated the defiant mantra that had yielded comfort in the past month: _He’s dead. He can’t control me anymore._ Regaining peace of mind, the boy appraised the merchant, all ruddy complexion and wide shoulders, imagined those thick, muscled arms encircling him. To his surprise, the nervous tingling of his skin burbled into a charged roil within his core. Beyond physical arousal, the man’s interest in him electrified his intelligence--he desperately wanted to retain the merchant’s favor. And further, he _wanted_ those books.

The choice was clear. Adashino softened his gaze and tipped his head deeper into the merchant’s rugged hand, melting into the persona embodied by those lithe ink figures.

\-----------------------------------------------------

So impressed was that first merchant with the boy’s skill and temperament, he had given the 16-year-old a discount on some makeup and the selfsame gawdy kimono the young doctor would parade for the two women at age 23. Since then, Adashino’s reputation among merchants and even mushishi grew--the young man found himself learning how to make his own paint, browsing kimono, and dressing up for himself, sliding into character, imagining himself in the handsome lovers’ tales which had previously been his refuge against the harshness of life under his master.

For a long while, Adashino held out hope for some of his more comely clients--fantasizing them gazing deep into his eyes and recognizing him, understanding him, _loving_ him. But alas, these more handsome men who came by his abode constituted his most fleeting encounters. The regulars were always the rough and ugly men, only stopping by for a sure fix.

But now, now there was him. _Ginko._ Ginko who was first his patient, then his friend. Ginko who did not require lavish embellishments, who was indifferent to whether Adashino put on feminine or masculine affects. Ginko whose eye peered into him with… _well, maybe…_

\---------------

Sleet coats the gray world outside, while within Adashino preens in a mirror, experimenting with pigment around his eyes. Fixing his hair into a loose half-bun, he glides about his house, singing and dancing, feeling himself, when two knocks breach his reverie.

He jumps a little. It is not as though this hasn’t happened before--it would not be unreasonable for him to have a villager come back the next day provided there is no emergency. _But, if there is…_

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Dashi-kun. Please open up--it’s cold out here.”

Anticipation flooding sweet into his heart, Adashino speeds to the door, sliding it open.

Both men gape at each other. Ginko looks rough, looks haggard. His clothes are dirty and ripped, cloth draping his lank, stooping body like the bag under his single sunken eye, which now peers astonished at the made-up doctor’s profligate finery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Emi wasn't gonna be a character, like I was at first just gonna say "Oh Adashino's collaborating with a glassblower to make a monocle" and then cut to him dressing up for himself but then just to write about him collaborating with a glassblower I had to choose a gender pronoun and suddenly Emi's entire life story flooded into my brain.
> 
> Anyways wooo gay stuff/passing the Bechdel test
> 
> -thworp-


	9. I've got you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The west coast is on fire so I can't bike to a coffeeshop to work on research... so... here we are!
> 
> CW: More referenced (but not explicit) r*pe, also misogynistic remarks by a character, death, destruction, horror...yeah it's an angsty chapter. Also explicit sex

She tended to her master that morning as his leg continued to vex him--and everyone, for that matter, the festering sore’s stench permeating the air around him. _Serves you right,_ she thought as his breaths grew increasingly more labored, for she was still cringing, still sore behind from his invasion the night before. Bemoaning the lack of anyone around to sympathize with her predicament, let alone avenge her honor, she nearly cried over the stranger’s death, but held her tongue for fear of future retaliation--as if any of this were her fault… It’s not like she chose to be betrothed to an aristocrat in _that_ town. _It’s not like I started the earthquake..._

.

_“Come here,” he demanded lasciviously, unable to move from the bed with the pain shooting up his leg._

_She hesitated, bowing her head. “But don’t you want to sell my virginity in the city? I’ll be worth nothing.”_

_“Don’t argue, cunt!” he barked, and as she strode over, added, “I’ll let you in on a secret, whorelet.” She cringed as he dug grubby fingers into her skin. “You’re not worth anything now, either. But just in case, you needn’t worry on my behalf--I won’t deflower you in the place that matters…”_

.

If her sinuses weren’t utterly clogged with the odor, she would have broken down bawling right there. However, not making a peep, she noticed something. _It’s really quiet all of a sudden… but what was making sound to begin with?_

Her eyes widened. _Oh. He’s not breathing anymore._ She turned slowly toward the corpse, looking into his dead eyes and unmoving chest. _Does this mean… I’m free? I’d better go fetch that other man so he doesn’t think I did it._ Before she could turn, she perceived a brief flash in her master’s eyes, and to her horror, he twitched and sat up, as if suddenly unaware of the pain.

.

A day passed and he hadn’t spoken a word to her, just loomed coldly, stinking all the way. As she prepared breakfast, she resolved to take the chance. _He won’t try to find me, not like this._ So she struck off, the alibi of gathering wild greens buying her some time. She dashed through the woods, blood pumping in her ears, determination dissolving awareness of her own exhaustion or the pain in her feet, the tears in her kimono.

She camped out in a ghost town that night, where the crushed bodies amidst the rubble reawakened the frenzy and terror of the event, how she tumbled across the floor, watching the roof cave in over her friends. The sound, too, roared through her ears. Sleep evaded the cold sweat of her reeling mind, the fear and excitement of running away fueling the gruesome sense-memories that ripped through her thoughts.

After a couple hours of hopeless tossing about, she decided to carry on, barely making it to a dark grove beyond the edge of the town before collapsing wearily to an unreasonably soft patch of earth.

_Please, please. Just oblivion. Nothing more. Please._

_Please._

Oblivion took her. She stood up, lighter, unsure whether she had slept or if her body had made contact with the dirt only moments ago. It did not occur to her to look down at herself or even to try to recall anything beyond the fact that she was free.

In this queer dim-lit forest, she simply walked. For a moment, she thought that perhaps there was another, a dark flicker of an eye, and suddenly panicked at the thought of having to introduce herself. _What’s my name again, anyway?_

But the other presence repelled her, as if to say, _No, not yet. Not yet, please._

She felt daggers of fear coming from the other entity, and ambled away, bewildered. _Who would be afraid of me?_ She did not think long on this, only kept wandering, an invisible force drawing her upstream like a migrating fish. _Two days travel with no rest. Two days travel and I’ll be home._

\------------------------------------

Realization hits Ginko quick and hard like a mallet on a gong. “A-are you entertaining someone right now? I could try to stay with Toshiko-san for the night if that’s the case…”

“No, no, come in.” Anxious at his friend’s predicament, the young doctor ushers his lover to the coals and begins to heat water for tea, nearly singeing the kimono in his haste. “I was just doing this for myself.”

The mushishi stares blankly at him. “Oh. It… looks good.”

Adashino becomes hyper-aware of how stilted and uncomfortable his friend is and the urge to please kicks in. “It looks like you haven’t had much rest” _...or a bath ...or food._ “What feels most urgent for you right now? I could ready a basin if you want to clean up, and a spare yukata while we clean and mend your clothes. I’ll make some miso for you to warm up your bones. But I’ll understand if you just want to crash before doing anything. Whatever you feel like doing is fine.” He smiles weakly, masking his worry. “I’m so glad to see you, Ginko-chan.”

“Dashi-chan…” The drawn and weary mushishi stares wide-eyed at his friend but avoids eye contact, unnaccustomed to the lavish urbanity of the other man’s attire.

Gauging his lover’s reaction, the doctor approaches Ginko and places light fingertips below his chin, peering seriously into the single shell-shocked eye. “It’s still me, Ginko. Under the kimono, under the make-up. You can see that, right?”

Ginko shivers out of the stupor and returns the doctor’s gaze. Seeing the change, Adashino leans in for a fluttering kiss. Taking in the delicate floral scent along the other man’s jawline, the mushishi responds with haste and the doctor soon finds his painted lips parting around his friend’s eager tongue, his hair springing loose from its comb as desperate hands claw into it.

Adashino knows that this get-up has an effect on men...but _those_ men, not Ginko. He pulls away before the other man can dirty his kimono with greedy hands.

“Ginko-” He gawps at the mushishi, searching for words. “Do you really like...I mean it’s fine, but--well I didn’t expect... that you-”

“I need you right now, Dashi-chan. I-is that okay?”

Restive, but still accommodating, the doctor begins untying and shuffling off his clothes. “Of course, just let me go prepare-”

“No, no, I mean…” Ginko cants around, grasping his lover by the neck and looking at him earnestly, fingers worming into the long hair of the other man’s nape. “Please fuck me, Dashi-chan. I’m ready... I found one of those things while on the road.”

“Oh.” Adashino blinks. “Okay, if that’s what you want.” _So he kept that part clean, but nothing else?_

Ginko attempts a smile before diving back into his lover’s mouth. He is interrupted promptly by the whistle of the pot of boiling water. Breaking off, Adashino grins at the sheen of crimson left on the other man’s lips. “I suppose I’ll make some of the relaxing tea for you, then?”

Eye still set on some faraway abyss, the mushishi nods in assent.

\-------------------------------------

It was the fifth day since Ginko had begun noticing human wreckage amidst the disturbed ground. The first two days he helped clear uprooted trees from a main road, but on the evening of the second, back stiff and aching, fingers numb from chill, he decided he would be a better asset in the villages, keeping mushi of death and decay from infecting whomever remained after the disaster.

So it was that on the third day he continued along alternate paths through now desolate mountain wilderness, gingerly scattering drops of kouki atop any sufficiently large seeping blackness in the ground, wary of depleting his stores before even reaching a town.

Ginko brooded as he lay down in his makeshift shelter that night. _This is bad. Normally even a small amount of this mushi mold would necessitate a thorough soak in kouki. It will take a long while for this mountain to recover. In that time darkness will undoubtedly take root._

The fourth day he rejoined the main drag, which forked three ways to different towns in the valley. From his high vantage he could see the way the roads wiggled in isotherms to their destinations, scrawny trails worn down by thousands of brief lives. He could see how the earthquake hacked out sudden gashes in the smooth dirt. One streak of rent earth in particular ran through a large building at the fork in the road. _That’s a whorehouse, right? I think I remember passing by that place before--they tried to lure me in… I wonder if anyone died while-_

He cut off the thought before the guilt of association could set in. Approaching the structure, he decided to go into the part still standing and investigate, wanting to see what mushi hung around these half-destroyed edifices. He ambled through a window into one of the back rooms, watching how the dust and rubble strewn along the mats cast long shadows in the morning light. Amongst the debris, he noticed a familiar object.

“Hello? Anyone?” Hearing no response, the mushishi picked up the douche and brushed it off. _With cleaning, this could be useful for portioning kouki._ As he swiveled to take off his pack, he finally noticed them--two corpses, mostly preserved in the winter cold, crushed in an embrace by a fallen wardrobe. Ginko had heard tell of how vast the destruction extended, how many lives were lost in various towns, but he hadn’t yet seen the dead. Seeing no atypical mushi and wanting to escape the judgment of those mangled empty stares, he kept his motions hasty as he stuffed the device into his pack and made his way off.

That night he camped in the first village. The place was entirely in ruins, not a soul to be found. He didn’t look too hard, at that, though it was not difficult to find more bodies, dust-coated limbs the only vestiges of what once lived below the wreckage. It took him even longer that night to fall asleep in the abruptly deserted village. Something about the sight of corpses under rubble made him cringe viscerally, moreso than his prior encounters with death had. Even more disturbing, as he began to drift off, the images flashed back to him blearily, as if through the surface of a black pool. He perceived himself looking up from the bottom of a marsh, watching the scenes dissociatively. Hazy at first, realization that he could not breath soon ripped through his consciousness and as a final image plunged down, bearing close, he felt a painful twinge in his left eye socket along with the vertigo of leaping out from the dream.

“Ka-san!” He found himself shouting in a cold sweat, uncertain why.

 _‘Ka-san?’ What a terrible dream...what even happened in it? I can hardly remember… I was drowning and-_ Ginko raised a hand to his left eye socket. _It hurt me. But it never hurts me..._ The mushishi lit up a cigarette and ruminated over the night terror, turning over the possibilities but unable to recover the basic facts.

Shaken, he found it difficult to return to slumber, managing only an hour or two of fitful, restless shut-eye. It was before the break of day when he rose. _Well, if I can’t sleep, I may as well find some clean water…_

Grumbling about his troubled attempts at sleep in those pitch-black early hours, he made his way to a well on the outskirts of the ghost town. Heaving on the pulley, he had nearly finished filling his container with the-- _clean, thankfully_ \--water when he saw it.

It was a shadow, or rather a human-shaped absence, a living obscurity. Something inexplicably irresistible in this place. A promise.

_The promise to forget._

Ginko eyed the movements of the creature as he capped his container noiselessly and crouched behind the other side of the well. He tried even to quiet his thoughts, to be invisible on every spectrum, but couldn’t silence the mantra in his chest: _No, not yet. Not yet, please._ As the thing shuffled away, he struggled to rein in his pumping heart, to silence his breaths. It was only as the tokoyami was out of sight that he allowed himself to break into a sprint for the path to the next village. He didn’t stop running until he could see the early morning sun creep over the horizon, and with it, two figures huddled around a firepit by the side of the road.

\--------------------------------------

The mushishi watches as the other man hands him the tea, still unsure how to interact with this version of his friend. Impatient, he gulps down the scalding liquid and turns expectantly to his lover. “Please, could we start? I need to feel you, koibito.” _I need to feel anything._

“Ginko-” The physician can tell something is wrong. “I know you’re ready, but I’m not. There’s no need to rush, is there?”

“We will die one day.” Images flash once again in the mushishi’s mind.

Adashino puzzles at his companion’s humorless mien. Cupping the other man’s face in his left hand and stroking his hair, he replies, “Well, except for the present malnutrition and exhaustion, you appear to be healthy, Ginko-chan, so I wouldn’t worry about that anytime soon.”

The 20-year-old blinks sedately at his friend’s words before mimicking his gestures and leaning forward. “Yes, it’s true that worrying doesn’t help.” He attempts to shuck off his dread in the soft warmth of the other man’s lips, reconstructing his favorite touches from the last time around. He maintains just enough presence to maintain a convincing facade, focusing everything on the other man’s pleasure to mask his own ennui.

So it is that he goes through the motions, and, after a time, draws his lover up and twists around, naked on the doctor’s futon, mouth still funky with precum and sweat. “Now. Please, Dashi-chan.”

Adashino smiles at his friend, rouge smeared in with the powder and sweat on his face, and kisses the other man on the neck. “Okay.” He gels up in time with the mushishi’s impatience and nudges in, relishing in the gruff breaths he draws from the other man.

Ever the sensitive one, Adashino responds gingerly--but ultimately bows--to Ginko’s requests of _harder_ and _faster,_ pausing to take puffs of the other man’s cigarette to make himself last longer when he feels himself nearing the edge. Still, the stimulation is biased toward his own pleasure, and although instinct and empathy drive him to slow down, be gentle, he carries on, and comes close to the brink all too fast. Reaching around to carry the other man with him, he rubs against a soft conundrum.

“Ginko-kun… you’re not even close-”

“It’s okay, I’m just focusing on the core feeling. Keep going, please.” The mushishi succumbs to the knowledge that this will be over soon--his body and mind will close up again and repeat the same nightmares. He tries to will the stubborn black tears out, make them release and leave him, but they only continue their constant seep, damp and slow. He feels how they clog back up in his eye socket as the hot liquid fills him up from behind. “Thank you,” he manages, disappointed.

Behind him, Adashino clutches sweaty and heaving. “Was that really good for you?”

“It was what I needed,” the mushishi replies simply. “Thank you.”

Even awash in the hormonal wave, Adashino perceives the other man’s cold, his stiffness. Lying down opposite him and caressing Ginko’s dry left cheek and fringe, the doctor feels out the words to use before uttering them.  
“Ginko, it’s me.  
“...  
“Please tell me the truth…  
“You know I would do the same for you, right?”

Ginko focuses on his companion for a moment before glazing back into a thousand-mile stare, frustration building amidst the dissociation.

“Ginko…?”

The mushishi snaps up and turns away from his friend, folding his legs up into a fetal position, expression frozen in horror. He shakes.

\--------------------------------------------

“Oooii!” He hollered, relieved to see living, solid human beings.

One of the men by the fire waved and answered Ginko’s hail, while the other trailed behind him.

As the mushishi approached, he greeted the men and warmed himself by the fire. After he had a chance to catch his breath, trying to keep from cringing too much at the smell of his new company, he found himself unusually talkative with the lack of sleep, introducing himself, his profession, and the grave phenomena he had observed in the past few days.

The man who greeted him, a traveling carpenter named Kohei, nodded along with Ginko’s tales, and proceeded to tell some of his own. While communicating with Kohei, the mushishi couldn’t help but steal brief glances at the other, silent man--he was tall and his pale skin looked to be clammy to the touch, even in the heat of the fire. Out of the corner of his eye, Ginko swore it almost looked like the man had a blue eye, but looking closer, his eyes were a typical dark brown.

The carpenter noticed Ginko’s fixation on the third member of their circle and began to explain. “Oh, he’s not doing very well right now. He won’t respond to any external stimulation. He was fine when I first met him, although with a terrible limp on account of his leg getting trapped during the quake. A couple days ago he became feverish and then he just snapped, got cold, stopped talking… but at least now his limp’s better. We had a girl with us too, but she disappeared yesterday in the woods. We looked around, but couldn’t find her. I hope she’s okay, but… like you say, there are horrors lurking about right now…”

Ginko peered, emboldened, at the gaunt, sallow man, and suddenly, he could see it again, dancing in the figure’s eye. _A blue flame…_

A sparkle of shock erupted along the mushishi’s spine. _Is he even… alive? Or did that thing jump into a corpse?_

“So he was responsive a couple days ago?”

“Yeah, crowing on and on about his losses with that brothel down the road. He owns it. That girl he had with him was one of his--the man he had planned to sell her to died in a fire following the quake, so he wanted to reach a city and sell her to recoup his debts. He was really upset, seemed to be taking it out on her--I can see why she would run away… But anyway, once he became like this, he barely even cared that she left. He’s cracked, I tell ya.”

“Have you noticed that it feels colder when he’s near?”

Kohei frowned at the mushishi. “Yeah. It’s annoying, because he keeps looming around me. It’s why I built this fire, so that I could warm up.”

Ginko nodded. “It appears this man, if he’s still alive, is being possessed by a mushi called kagebi, which takes the form of a blue flame and steals heat from animals. I can give him a mushi purge, and we’ll see if we can save him. By the looks of it, however, I can’t say whether he’s already gone.” He concluded by digging into his traveling cabinet and pulling a packet from a drawer.

“Help me get him to swallow it.”

The two men held the third awkwardly as Ginko poured the contents of the package into the latter’s mouth, chasing it with water when he finished to make sure it would go down. They followed up by continuing their chatting, roasting yams over the fire, when suddenly Ginko saw the flame flitting out of the other--now slumping--figure’s ear. He rushed to administer first aid, but the man was too far gone. Investigating the body, the mushishi concluded that he had died of infection from his leg injury, the festering of which was causing the smell.

As the men distracted themselves with the particulars of the third man’s death, the kagebi alighted upon the firepit, turning the blaze a cold cerulean.

“Kuso-! Quick, get the yams out of there!” The carpenter did as he was told, and Ginko heaved armfuls of sand onto the flame, satisfied only when it was completely doused. Sighing, he moved away, slinking an arm around the other man. “We’ll have to finish those on another fire. We should remain physically close, since we both lost heat to that kagebi. Is that okay with you?”

The other man grunted in assent and the pair made their way off.

\---------------------------------------------

“Oh.” Orgasm subsiding, recognition and empathy floods through Adashino’s consciousness, and he springs into action. “I’ll be right back--I’m going to make some kukicha for you.”

This done, he sits next to where the other man’s head trembles on the futon, placing the cup on the floor nearby, and begins to stroke the troubled mushishi’s long fringe, taking care to keep it an opaque curtain between Ginko’s missing eye and the rest of the world.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Shhhh…” The doctor continues making soothing noises, and, remembering his first encounter with the mushishi, starts humming soft lullabies to his worn lover.

\-----------------------------------

Ginko and Kohei camped out in the second town, which, though evacuated, was not as thoroughly destroyed as the first, with the exception of its well. The men found the most structurally sound minka in sight and made use of its coal pit and futon, digging up winter vegetables from an adjacent garden. Rattled by the events of the morning, the pair concluded that they had enough combined water for the next day and settled into the deserted-but-not-dead village, huddling under a blanket together, sharing heat.

As evening fell, Ginko found himself in a suggestive embrace with the other man, not having the heart to let him know that it wouldn’t be necessary to be so close anymore, that they could sleep further apart. Moreover, he relished the comfort of being wrapped in another warm body. Escaping momentarily from that cold place, he imagined the other man was Adashino, whenever Ginko managed to doze off with the doctor’s arms still around him. For the first time in three nights, Ginko’s sleep remained untroubled.

He awoke in the small hours basking in the dual sources of heat--Kohei and the coals. It took a moment for him to realize that the former nudged into his lower back in an uncouth, yet not-unfamiliar manner. The mushishi moved away tactfully, but felt Kohei pull him back with a grumbling whine, still half-asleep.

 _Does he want…?_ Ginko pondered his interactions with the other man, turning over whether any had been erotically charged. He pinpointed a couple times when he had a chance to look over the carpenter, his sturdy muscular frame and lightly bearded face. He enjoyed the view, but distanced the possibility… _But I suppose Adashino-sensei has other lovers._ His mind focused more acutely on thoughts of the other man’s firm shoulders. _And it would be nice to have a fuck, anything to take the edge off of the past few days._

He backed into the other man, starting an explicit, intentional grind as Kohei returned to consciousness.

The carpenter jumped back then. “Oh, gomen’nasai, gomen’nasai! Kuso, I thought you were my wife for a moment.”

 _His wife._ “Oh. It’s okay. I’m sorry, we don’t have to be lying so close anymore anyway.” At this, Ginko felt a hand on his shoulder.

“No, please. I-I need the touch. We could switch sides so that my ... _problem_... isn’t an issue.” The mushishi grunted accord and the men shuffled and rolled over, not making eye contact.

As Ginko laced his arm around the other man’s solid physique, he asked, “Is your wife still with us, or…?”

Kohei exhaled loud and stared at the dark wall ahead of him for a long while before replying. “I don’t know. I’m scared to check. Right now, she and my kids could still be alive out there--I don’t think I could bear it if any of them perished in the quake.”

“So you prefer the uncertainty? Surely you don’t want to avoid them forever--that would be just as bad for you as if they died, right?” Ginko felt the carpenter tense in his arms. “Sorry, I mean, of course it would be better if they were alive, but-”

“No, I know what you mean. Maybe after we get to the next town for supplies, then I’ll head off.” Ginko could feel the other man shiver. After a long, tense pause, the carpenter continued. “I heard our village was pulverized. There is only a thin scrap of hope keeping me going now, Ginko-san.”

The mushishi nuzzled into the back of Kohei’s head. “I’m sorry, Kohei-san. But whatever happens, you survived, and wherever you end up, you’ll be among other survivors, others who know your pain. You’ll all... stitch together your scraps of hope and make something new.” Squeezing the other man’s torso momentarily, he added, “For now, I’ve got you.”

Kohei turned over to face the mushishi, eyes gleaming in the faint light of the coals. “Ginko-san…” He could see the single eye darting its focus between his own eyes and his lips, and pressed his own mouth to the other man’s, unintrusive but decisive. “You were moving to encourage me earlier.”

“Oh, yeah… gomen ne, Kohei-san--I didn’t realize you had a wife.” The mushishi could still feel the warmth and stubble of the carpenter's mouth lingering on his lips. Despite his expressed remorse, he wanted more.

The carpenter grasped around the side of Ginko’s face. “It’s okay...I think I need to blow off the steam, if you’re willing.”

 _Fuck yes._ Undeterred by the guilt of infidelity, caught completely in the moment of need, of desperation, Ginko followed up on the earlier kiss.

That night Kohei came between Ginko’s legs, but the next night, in a makeshift inn--after a long day of travel followed by odd jobs and, at long last, the unremarkable but effective sort of healing the mushishi originally imagined would come with populated areas--the carpenter went in, rough and sloppy, hot compulsion the only threadbare force guiding his jerking motions. Although he enjoyed the novel feel of nagaimo lubricant, Ginko knew that this form of contact would not bring him to orgasm. However, it was doing something, somehow--ever since he had started seeing the bodies, his nightmares twisted and tightened his ki--now, with the intense plunging, the feeling of being ripped apart at his base, he felt as though something was loosening, thawing within him. Raising an arm to his damp face and lowering it to have a look, his eye widened. _Black tears?_ He raised the soiled hand into the sightline of the man behind him.

“Ko- -huh- hei-san -uuuUUHhh- Is my hand -aAA- dirty?” He huffed out the words between heaving breaths before succumbing again to the intensity and the rhythm.

The carpenter opened his eyes to look, grunted a “No,” then went back to his rapid thrusts, uncaring what the mushishi meant to convey to him. What they were doing felt dirty to Kohei, an animal act of desperation. Sure, he liked Ginko just fine as a man in the outside world, but here, like this, he was a means to an end.

As Ginko returned his hand to a supporting position below him, he could feel the tears evaporating. Looking down, he could no longer see the black smudge, but as he continued to let the other man ride him hard and fast, he perceived leakage dripping steadily from his empty eye. Intrigued, he peered at the tears falling black on the futon and fading from sight throughout the rest of their shag.

He didn’t mention it again to Kohei, but they continued that late night ritual all the way back to the carpenter’s village.

\----------------------------------------

Having administered a gentle massage with subtle, calming oils, Adashino tucks his lover into a blanket on his futon. Rising, counting the lengths of his exhales, he goes to strip himself of the smeared makeup. When he returns to embrace the mushishi, he monitors the other man’s breath for the onset of sleep before withdrawing to curl into himself, worry tightening his heart.

Sleep takes his aching, and he awakes at midnight, a cold absence his only companion in bed. He shoots up as awareness rocks through him.  
_Oh no… did he leave?_  
_He didn’t even say anything--What’s wrong with him?_  
_Did I do something wrong?_  
_Taihen-da!_  
_Why did I not realize before taking him?_  
_I should have known!_  
_Kuso… what’s wrong with me?_

The doctor lights a lantern, throws on a yukata, and staggers out, vain hope urging him to run up the nearest hill and peer out as far as his nearsightedness allows. He is stopped, however, by the sight of a familiar silhouette leaning against the banister, the familiar scent of smoke.

“Yo.”

Adashino’s heart is still pumping hard as he sits to the left his troubled friend, reaching to take a puff on the joint. For a moment he imagines an ebon gleam trickling underneath the bangs on the other man’s left cheek, but when he blinks to refocus, all he can see is that same dry and pale skin.

“Sorry for slipping out. I had a bad dream.”

“Care to tell me?”

Ginko shifts his eyeball to the other stooped figure briefly before replying. “It’s hard to recall specific events in these, only the dread… I think it has to do with things I saw in my most recent travels--all the ruins in the wake of the earthquake, all the dead. But this place, it’s close still to an undamaged light vein. The river is so beautiful at this time of night. I think…”

Adashino stretches a hand around the mushishi and strokes the other man’s arm. “Yeah?”

“I think this is the only way I can forget them. This and fucking.”

The doctor watches as Ginko wipes his left hand along his cheek and becomes transfixed with the sight of whatever invisible residue sticks to his fingers.

Adashino feels a crack deep in his gut. “Well I hope the fucking does more than just make you forget. I mean… Ginko-chan…” He raises a hand to his lover’s head and gently angles it so he can make eye contact. “Ginko, ai shiteru. I mean it--you’re the best thing that’s happened in my life, and I want you to know that I’d do anything for you. I just hope that you feel some fraction of that for me, as well.”

Ginko turns his head back away. “Your love won’t save me, Dashi-chan... I’ve seen plenty of lovers in the past moons, crushed under wood and stone, charred in the ash.”

“But you’re still alive! We’re still alive…” Adashino places his hand on the other man’s. _“Right?”_

“It’s not just that…” In his mind’s eye, Ginko still sees the exact moment of Kohei’s death.

_“Get out of there--it’s unstable!”_

_“But what if there was an opening and one of them was trapped there--what if one of them is still alive?!” Kohei rummages through the debris, the sound of creaking wood popping all around him. At long last his bloodied fingers find something other than splintered wood--a dirty, stained kimono, and the jumble of something putrid and soft within. “Oh Maki-chan, let me dig you out--I’ll save you!” He is startled by a falling banister nearby, and clutches the body for comfort. “Maki-chan, my life, please, I need you…”_

_“What are you doing, Kohei-san! Get back here where it’s safe--let go of the past! All you’re holding is death!” The carpenter looks back at him, hurt, as the remaining structure crumples around him with a thundering din._

Ginko stares into the distance, stares at the snuffing of a life on repeat, stares at the ruin that mirrored all the other ruins in the aftermath. Why couldn’t he let go?

“What else, then?”

The mushishi is drawn out of his vision, and, taking a puff on his cigarette, replies. “Nothing.”

The fissure in Adashino’s stomach deepens and lashes up to his throat. “Well what are you going to do about it, then? Forswear all attachment? Join a troupe of roving monks? You know they won’t let you keep that forelock hiding your missing eye-!” Remorse fills him as soon as the words leave his mouth, and he reaches out to caress the selfsame fringe. “I’m sorry, that was cruel.”

Ginko swallows. “It’s okay. The thought did occur to me, but-” He takes a puff, exhaling slow. “I can’t just withdraw, Dashi-chan. I have to help. It’s for me to take an active role in maintaining the balance. I don’t… have a choice. Call it maudlin, but I can’t turn myself away from the wreckage.” He brings his own hand up to his drying eye socket. “It’s part of me.” The mushishi feels his ki twisting as he articulates the pain, though he cannot tell whether it is tightening or loosening the knots of trauma residing within. It just hurts.

The pair sit for awhile in silence. At long last, the doctor sighs and sits up. “Come, Ginko-kun. There’s something I have to show you.” _It’s probably about time again to put on some incense, anyway._

The mushishi trails after his friend as the latter grabs a stick from the storehouse and strides dutifully to the closed room next to the latrine. He stops and turns around before opening the door. “Do you know what this room was made for, Ginko-kun?”

“Huh? Well if it follows the plan of the large samurai houses your master may have been accustomed to… Wait-- Did he…?”

“No. He misused this room, and so I must go here and light a stick of this incense once or so every moon, to keep the taint he brought here at bay.” Adashino opens the door so Ginko can see, what, to him, must be a clearly defined and frightful form.

Ginko’s eye widens as he perceives the rotten red clinging to the walls.  
“You…  
“You have…  
“You’ve been living with…”

_“Ai-no-naka-no-shi.”_

“But that’s-”

“Permanent. I know. It doesn’t go away. It nearly killed me, before I realized it was there--I have my suspicions about its role in my master’s death--but once I recognized it, and worked with it, well, it’s still a nuisance… But now, at worst, it’s a needy cohabitator, not a deadly threat.”

“How did it even get here??”

The doctor turns to his companion. “I’ve already told you that story, my love.”

“...Oh.”

Adashino stoops to place the incense stick. “There was a time when the images and sense-memories it replayed were all-consuming, and they rocked my psyche, drove me to isolation. But now this thing takes only a small part in my life.” He lights the incense, and Ginko watches as the mushi transfigures and contracts with the plumes of smoke. “It just takes time.” Rising back up, he adds, “Time and persistence.”

The mushishi faces his companion, face aghast in wonderment. “I can’t believe…”  
_You kept this from me?_  
_How could you live with this-_  
_...and still be as you are?_  
_And to feel as you do about mushi in spite of it all--I’ve known people who turned to eradicating the spirits for less than a fucking ai-no-naka-no-shi…_

In lieu of responding, Ginko embraces his friend, cleaving firm to the other man’s stability amidst the thawing of his own heart.

Adashino feels hot dampness on his neck where the right side of his lover’s face is lodged. “It’s okay, Ginko-chan. I’ve got you.”


End file.
